The Measure of a Hero
by Random Equinox
Summary: Some people are heroes because they can make the hard choices for the greater good. Some are heroes because they take responsibility for their actions, no matter what.
1. Innocuous Beginnings

**The Measure of a Hero**

_Author's Note: No, your eyes do not deceive you. After a constant and occasionally inconsistent—specifically things like the review count—clamour, the Heroverse has finally gotten to the last ME2 DLC. _

_Getting to this stage would have been challenging, to say the least, without the assistance and contribution of a couple individuals. Specifically, I would like to thank _Chu.e_, who took the time and effort to take my save file and play through this DLC as well as Mass Effect 3. I must also acknowledge _project 501D13R_, who pointed out that in fan fiction, Shepard doesn't necessarily have to break in and out of prison alone._

_And, of course, a special thanks to _Chris Dee _for acting as a sounding board, a beta reader and a cover picture artist. Without her input, Shepard wouldn't be the adorable kleptomaniac he is today. _

_A word of caution: despite any creative additions or changes I may have made, this novelization will adhere fairly closely to the source material—up to and including the outcome. Readers should therefore consider themselves forewarned._

* * *

_**Editorial Note:**_

_The fact that there was so little evidence pointing to the existence of the Reapers is testament to their relentless, thorough and brutal efficiency. Granted, there were some signs. The discoveries of an archaeologist, dismissed as wild theories that flew in the face of centuries of established academic 'fact.' The experiences of a human soldier, dismissed as an indication that he'd finally become unhinged from years of harrowing adventures and the prospect of more to come. That sort of thing._

_Yet for many sapients, the first indication of the Reapers and their activities was a pivotal event that occurred at the beginning of the year 2186. While the outcome is now a matter of public fact, and much of the events surrounding Aratoht and the Bahak system have since come to light, there is a great deal that remains unclear or incomplete. Chief amongst those mysteries is the role of one Commander Shepard, which has sadly been muddied and clouded by need-to-know classification, rampant hearsay, deliberate and accidental misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories—some of which persist to this very day. I offer this compilation of personal logs, to those individuals with sufficient security clearance, in an effort to address and counter such misunderstandings._

_Readers can be reassured that I have continued Admiral Anderson's practise of editing these logs into chapters for easier reading, and added explanatory footnotes and additional observations where appropriate. As always, I accept full responsibility for any inaccuracies or errors._

_Sincerely,_

_Dr. Liara T'Soni_

* * *

**Chapter 1: Innocuous Beginnings**

It started off quite innocently. I'd recently thwarted a Cerberus plot, exposed a previously unknown Cerberus operation and acquired some nifty data. Granted, we were still studying said data, but at least we had it and Cerberus did not. With that accomplishment under my belt, I thought I'd pay Liara another visit.

There wasn't much to find this time, unfortunately. Quite a change. Back then, after killing the Shadow Broker and his flunkies, I thought I'd stumbled across the mother lode. A fresh, seemingly renewable source of new tech that I didn't need to hack my way in to find. Constant shipments of minerals that didn't require hours of tedious probing and inevitable sexual jokes. Scintillating conversations with the newest residents of the Shadow Broker base.

Now? No tech, I was lucky if I got any eezo and any chit-chat usually started and ended with 'Shepard, I'm glad you came.' **(1)**

So I returned to the Normandy. Made my rounds. Harassed the men and women who had the poor luck to be stuck with me or the poor sense to volunteer for the crazy comedy of errors that passed for my life. I was just about to head up and feed my fish when…

"Commander? You have a new message waiting at your private terminal."

That was Kelly. Hand-picked by TIMmy to tell me when I had new e-mails, inform me of any squadmates who might be having issues and provide psychological counseling whenever… yeah, I never actually saw her do that last part. And local scuttlebutt suggested that she was in no shape to do that. Still having nightmares, apparently. Couldn't blame her, really: if I'd been abducted, trapped in a pod and forced to watch while hundreds of other humans in similar situations got liquefied one by one before my very eyes, I'd probably be having nightmares myself. But she could still perform her other duties as well as any other VI.

Normally, I'd say OK and read it later in my cabin. But there was a light blinking at my terminal. It looked like… wait a second…

It looked like this wasn't an e-mail. It was a live, real-time comm signal. And whoever was on the other end was waiting _right now _for me to pick up. And had been waiting for who knows how long.

Now I was curious. I walked over and opened the comm channel.

"_Incoming message from Admiral Steven Hackett, Alliance HQ," _a bodiless voice told me. Either it was an actual comm officer or Alliance VI voice protocols had substantially improved in the last few years. _"Please stand by."_

I didn't have to wait long. _"Commander Shepard. I need to discuss a sensitive matter with you. Privately."_

Yep, that was Hackett all right. No one else had his deep, gravelly commanding voice. And no one else would contact me for the sole purpose of sending me off on some random assignment. At least I wasn't doing anything important this time. **(2)** "I'll take this in my quarters, Kelly," I told her.

"I'll transfer the vid-comm call up," Kelly nodded.

Vid-comm? That meant actual real-time visual communication as well as audio. Fancy.

When I got up to my quarters, I tapped a few controls on my terminal. The lights illuminating my model ships slowly went out. A message blinked _**Initializing contact.**_ That's right. The case holding my ships wasn't just there to indulge my penchant for collecting models. It also doubled as a display monitor. I'd only discovered that recently, after my attempts to move a model accidentally flipped a switch and turned it on. Then I discovered that whatever Cerberus flunky set this up had a fondness for one of those music vid channels. No taste. Yet another reason why I left.

But I digress.

A second later, Hackett appeared on the monitor. He cut a stern, commanding figure, the way he was decked out in Alliance dress blues. His mustache and beard—which were trimmed to military standard length, of course—sported a mix of silver and white. A bit early, considering he was in his early fifties, but that only added to his authoritative presence. The scar under his right eye was new, though. At least, I thought it was new. I hadn't seen him in person since… well, before I became a Spectre, actually. Damn, it had been a while.

Before I knew it, I'd stood to attention and threw a salute. Old habits die hard, I guess. "Sir."

Hackett was gracious enough to salute me back. _"Commander. Thank you for your time. I'll keep this brief: we have a deep-cover operative out in batarian space. Her name is Doctor Amanda Kenson. She recently reported that she found evidence of an imminent Reaper invasion. Just this morning, I received word that the batarians arrested her. They're holding her in a secret prison outpost on terrorism charges. I need you to infiltrate the prison and extract her."_

Yep, that was brief all right. And, once again, Hackett was calling me for help. Seemed just like old times. Though the Reaper invasion intel and infiltrating batarian territory bits were new.

"_As a favour to me, I'm asking you to go in alone."_

That was definitely new. "Sir, I have a hell of a squad with me. I'm sure they'd help me out."

"_I've thought of that," _Hackett acknowledged, _"and I know how restrictive this mission parameter might be."_

"Then you know that the chances of success would dramatically improve if I had some backup," I reminded him.

"_And you know that if the batarians see a squad of armed soldiers, they'd kill her. __**(3)**__ That's why I asked for you—because you have experience with these sorts of operations. Go in with discretion, or don't go in at all."_

Now I wasn't planning on bumbling through the prison with a marching band or anything stupid like that. But it had been a long time since I'd done solo ops. And there were several reasons why I didn't like them, besides the fact that I'd have no one to talk to but myself. "What can you tell me about Dr. Kenson?" I tried, going for a different tack.

"_Amanda is a top scientist and Alliance agent who often runs deep-cover operations in hostile territory," _Hackett replied. _"She's usually assigned high-risk, if not deadly assignments, mainly because she's one of the few men and women up to the challenge."_

He paused, leaning forward ever-so-slightly._ "I'll be honest with you, Commander: she and I go back pretty far. She's one of my closest friends. I won't let her rot away in a batarian torture camp." _

Aha. I didn't get the sense that there was anything romantic going on here, but there was still a personal connection nonetheless. Hence the private nature of this conversation and asking to do this as a favour for one of the most powerful men in Alliance military and political circles. Not that I'd bring that up, of course.

Though that did clarify another point, one that I could safely voice out loud without pissing him off: "A human in batarian custody is bad enough. Finding out she's Alliance would be even worse. And if they find out that the Alliance is breaking into one of their secret prisons to rescue her…"

"_..they'd be extremely upset," _Hackett finished, voicing the conclusions I'd already come to. _"Relations between humanity and the batarians are bad enough as it is. Which is why this is not an officially-sanctioned Alliance operation. This is one person with no recognized ties or affiliations going in to save a friend."_

Right. Just an ex-Alliance guy who may have been reinstated as a Council Spectre and may have been working with—not for—a certain pro-human terrorist group going in on his own to rescue a fellow human with no official backup whatsoever. Story of my goddamn life. At least Hackett didn't open that old wound.

"_You keep this quiet, Shepard, and there's nothing to worry about."_

Uh huh. I was usually pretty good at keeping things quiet, but that still gave me plenty of things to worry about. Usually because they were trying to kill me. "What exactly is she doing out there?"

"_She was investigating a rumour of an artifact in batarian space," _Hackett said_. "Her last report said her team had found it, out in the Bahak system."_

"I thought the Alliance denies the Reaper threat," I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "That must be some proof she's found."

"_We might not recognize their existence officially," _Hackett conceded,_ "but we recognize the threat they provide and we have been taking certain steps to prepare—unofficially. If nothing else, it's another motivation to rebuild the fleets."_ **(4)**

Well at least somebody was willing to listen to me, even if they didn't acknowledge it.

"_That's why Dr. Kenson was hand-picked for that mission and why her report raised so many concerns. Amanda believes she found a genuine Reaper device, with additional proof that they are indeed planning to invade. Like I said, I've known her for a long time. If she says she has something, it's worth checking out."_

For all the grief that he'd given me back when I was still a recognized soldier in the Alliance and an officially sanctioned Spectre, Hackett always had my back. Even when I'd come back from the dead, he'd supported me, though I didn't find that out until I read a file in the Shadow Broker's dossiers:

_From: Major Caleb Antella  
__To: Admiral Steven Hackett  
__Subject: Taking Action on Commander Shepard's Return _

_Sir, _

_We've confirmed sightings of Commander Shepard on Omega, and that the Commander is now working for the terrorist organization Cerberus. Several Alliance officials have let it be known that they consider it crucial that we interrogate humanity's first Spectre on his apparent desertion of the Alliance and the Citadel. If we bring Shepard in now, we can gather an account of the Commander's past two years without being pressured by the galactic media to leak potentially sensitive data. In light of this, I am officially requesting that you rescind your orders against Alliance contact with Shepard. _

_Rest assured our department is dedicated to the Commander's safety. Provided that Shepard is cooperative in furnishing us with a detailed report of his previous whereabouts and current work for Cerberus, we anticipate releasing him from Alliance Custody no later than five to seven months from acquisition. _

_Respectfully awaiting your reply, _

_Major Antella  
__Department of Internal Naval Affairs_

Yet another sign that the Alliance was happy with ignoring everything I'd done up to that point, jumping to the worst possible conclusions and itching to lock me away in a deep, dark hole and throw away the key. So you can imagine how shocked and relieved I was to read Hackett's response:

_From: Admiral Steven Hackett  
__To: Major Caleb Antella  
__Subject: Re: Taking Action on Commander Shepard's Return _

_Major Antella: _

_Request denied. _

_Hackett _

That meant a lot. It really did. In five simple words—more if you counted the sender, recipient and subject line—Hackett had made it crystal clear that he trusted me. One of the most powerful and brilliant military minds in the Alliance, one of the most politically influential beacons for humanity—and he trusted _me. _

Do you know how rare that was? In a galaxy where my name was basically mud, there were only a handful of people, outside a crew that had fought and bled and almost got killed alongside me, who believed me. And most of those weren't even from my own species. I know that shouldn't mean anything in the great galactic community, but it did. In those quiet moments when I wasn't running around fighting hostiles or running for my life or indulging my insatiable curiosity, when there was nothing to distract me from my own thoughts, it mattered. And it hurt.

So if Admiral Hackett had handpicked me for a mission, one that wasn't some random waste of time but might actually provide proof about the impending doom that no one was willing to openly acknowledge, then there was only one thing to say. "All right," I finally agreed. "I'll make this a priority."

"_The prison is hidden underground at a batarian outpost on Aratoht. I'll upload the coordinates now."_

I saw him enter in a few commands. A few seconds later, a pinging noise confirmed the arrival of a data packet. I gave EDI the okay to download it to my terminal before opening it myself. "Got it," I confirmed.

"_Once she's secure, confirm her discovery," _Hackett ordered. _"We'll debrief you when you're back."_

Wow. An actual debriefing. Almost like I was back in the Alliance.

"Got it," I nodded.

"_Hackett out."_ He closed the channel and the monitor faded away, replaced by the display case and all my shiny ships.

* * *

Before you undertake any mission, it's important to determine how much intel you have and whether it's enough to successfully complete it. And, of course, whether you can depend on the intel_**.**_ The less intel you have, the more unknowns, random variables and blind spots will plague you—and the greater the chances that the mission will fail. So that's what I did:

Who was the target? Dr. Amanda Kenson, Alliance.

What was the objective? Extract Dr. Kenson from the batarians. Alive.

Where was Dr. Kenson being held? A secret prison on Aratoht, in the Bahak system, in the Viper Nebula.

Why was it so important that I get her out alive? Because she had intel on some artifact or device that would not only confirm the existence of the Reapers to all those naysayers who'd prefer to stick their heads in the sand but would also suggest that a Reaper invasion was eminent. Which was kinda important—while I knew the Reapers were coming, I didn't know how much time we had to prepare. Might be months, might be years.

When did I have to rescue Dr. Kenson? The sooner, the better. She'd been captured by the batarians on terrorism charges. That meant interrogation, of the physical, rock-em'-sock-em', probably illegal if it ever saw the light of day torture variety. The only upside was that, if she truly was a deep-cover agent, then she'd have been trained in recognizing and resisting those techniques. Which meant I didn't have to worry about her volunteering every single secret in her noggin within the first couple minutes.

That left me with a lot of unknowns, though. Where exactly was this secret underground prison? Aratoht was a big planet, after all. How deep underground was it, exactly? What was the layout like? Where was Dr. Kenson being held within the prison? How many guards were there? What kind of weapons did they have? How many ways were there to get in and out? And, most importantly, could I do this on my own?

Now that I had ID'd the gaps in my intel, it was time to plug them. Preferably with something more substantial than wishful thinking, hope and a prayer. Fortunately for me, I was right on top of a base dedicated to gathering, analyzing and applying intel.

So down to Deck Five, into the Kodiak, through the volatile storms of Hagalaz and back to the Shadow Broker base I went. "Hi, Liara!"

"Shepard, I'm glad you came—wait. Weren't you just here?"

Glad she finally noticed. "Just got a mission. From Hackett."

"Admiral Hackett?" Liara said. "From the Alliance?"

"That's the one," I confirmed.

She thought about that. "Remember when we kept getting sidelined and pulled from our hunt for Saren because of all those requests from Admiral Hackett?" **(5)**

"Yes," I said, rolling my eyes. "This time, though, it's a bit more serious." I quickly outlined everything Shepard had told me. "It would help if I knew a bit more about this prison."

"I would agree," Liara nodded. "Icon, can you come over here please?"

A drone—the one that the previous Shadow Broker had used as a data processing VI and personal assistant—floated towards us. "Icon?" I repeated.

"I decided that it needed a name that was more personal than 'info drone'," Liara explained. "I've been trying different names for a while now."

"You have been referring to this drone as 'Icon' for the last six days, fifteen hours and nine minutes, Shadow Broker," the drone elaborated, drifting to a stop before us. "Before that, you called us 'Augur' for three days, four hours, eighteen minutes. Before that, you called us 'Oracle' for—"

"Got it," I interrupted. "Still calling everyone 'Shadow Broker,' huh?"

"It's a work in progress," Liara admitted.

"Fair enough," I said. "Now then: what can you tell me about Aratoht?"

* * *

Once Liara and Icon—or Augur or Oracle or whatever the hell he/it was called—did some digging and got some more intel, I went back to the Normandy to brief the squad.

I guess you could argue that I was informing the squad because they'd want to know what trouble their fearless and brain-damaged leader had found this time. Besides, EDI had likely eavesdropped on my conversation with Hackett. And since EDI wasn't bound and shackled by Cerberus protocols, she was free to do whatever she liked with that intel. Which meant alerting whoever she thought should know about this latest mission. One way or another, they'd find out, and it would look better if I told them first. All of which was true, of course.

The other reason was that they were my squad and I was their leader. It was my job and my responsibility to know when to keep intel to myself, when to share the love—not to mention stress, fear and barely-concealed panic—and how to navigate the nebulous gray line in between. **(6)** At the moment, it seemed wise to err on the side of bringing them into the loop.

"So what did you find out from Liara," Miranda asked after I brought the squad up to speed.

In response, I brought up a holo of Aratoht. "Aratoht: second planet from the sun in the Bahak system. One of many planets claimed by both the Systems Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony. During the 2160s, Admiral Jon Grissom conducted a fact-finding mission to determine whether it was a good site for human colonization, and whether it was worth wasting any more time bickering with the Hegemony over it."

"How did they fight?" Grunt asked eagerly.

"With words in the Citadel Council Committee on Habitable Worlds," I replied, "not with fists or bullets."

"Boring," Grunt dismissed.

"Yeah," Jack agreed.

"Grissom's team ultimately determined that Aratoht's atmospheric pressure and oxygen content were too low," I continued, "and decided that the Alliance was better off concentrating on other planets. Say, ones that didn't require pressurized habitat domes or rebreathers. Since the other planets in the Bahak system were only good for resource mining or drive core discharging—something that could be done in other, more accessible and desirable, systems—the Alliance ultimately ceded control of the entire Bahak system to the Hegemony. Humans saw it as a wise and prudent use of taxpayer money; batarians saw it as a display of cowardice and lack of fortitude that demonstrated yet another example of their superiority."

"And how did 'batarian superiority' overcome the challenges of colonizing Aratoht," Tali wanted to know.

"First, they had to deal with the fact that the average temperature was 55 degrees Celsius, or 131 degrees Fahrenheit," I began. "They dealt with that by focusing their efforts in the polar regions, which were slightly cooler thanks to all the rainfall they received. Next, they shipped in loads of indentured servants—read: slaves—to build all those colonies. The costs were ridiculously high in terms of credits as well as actual lives, thanks to a string of accidents and piss-poor planning, but the batarians were pretty blasé about the whole thing. Probably because they regarded slaves as cheap and replaceable.

"Slave labour was also used to solve the oxygen problem, mostly by dumping loads of cyanobacteria into the oceans and blanketing the habitable regions with invasive plant species. After 20 years of this, they've managed to raise the average oxygen content by a fraction of a percent. Woohoo. By the way, the Hegemony proudly points to this as an example of their successful terraforming practises and a sign of their eventual triumph."

There were a lot of eye-rolling at that point. Can't imagine why.

"At present, Aratoht's good for two things. The first is its planetary crust, which is loaded with obscenely concentrated lodes of minerals. Naturally, the slaves are busy mining those lodes for the good of the Hegemony. The second are a cluster of several military bases and staging areas. Both of those facts greatly concern the Alliance."

"Yeah, I could see that," Jacob agreed. "Especially since the Bahak system's pretty close to Earth." **(7)**

"And one of those military bases happens to be the secret prison outpost where Dr. Kenson is being held," I said.

"Aren't all batarian bases secret?" Zaeed pointed out.

He had a point. Chalk one up for institutionalized paranoia. "True," I conceded. "This particular secret base is located in the northern polar region." A click of my omni-tool caused the holo to zoom in on said region, then zoom in again on a clearing located in the midst of trees and rocky terrain until a building complex appeared.

"As you can see, the prison is not, in fact, underground," I said. "Probably more a result of incomplete intel than intentional misinformation. Sadly, it's been the victim of political manoeuvring and overall corruption. It gets funds for expansion, only to lose it as other bases are deemed to be of greater importance to the state. It gets approval for basic maintenance or repair, only to have most of the credits siphoned off into private accounts. It gets an assortment of prisoners deemed important for one reason or another, only to have the most important prisoners transferred so the parties involved can get the political bragging rights, followed by important prisoners, followed by somewhat important prisoners and so on. Today, it only has a handful of prisoners, no more than forty or fifty guards and has fallen into so much disrepair that the whole place is literally leaking like a sieve."

Miranda frowned. "If that's the case, why did Dr. Kenson get sent there? The Hegemony has no love for humans in general, and the Alliance in particular. A human operative from the Alliance caught in batarian space would surely be regarded as a high-value prisoner, one that should be held at an installation with greater defences and security."

"She's right," Zaeed agreed. "You only go to a batarian prison if they don't trust you enough to sell you into slavery. High-priority targets don't go there."

"You're both right," I nodded. "However, the father of one of the batarians who captured Kenson is the warden of that prison. He's been making regular requests for more money, resources or manpower—all of which have been denied. My guess is he regards Dr. Kenson as the answer to all his problems. 'Hey, look at who I found! You want her? You gotta pay for her.' That sort of thing."

"Fifty or sixty hostiles," Grunt growled. "There's thirteen of us. That's four or five for each of us. Hit 'em hard enough and we can blow right through them."

"And all it would take is one bullet to take out Dr. Kenson before we blew through everybody," I reminded him.

Grunt frowned. Thought about it. Thought about it some more. "Oh," he said at last. "Guess we gotta do things the boring way."

"There's no way we can sneak the entire squad through the prison, rescue Dr. Kenson and sneak her back out without someone noticing," I continued. "A smaller team, though, would probably have more luck."

"You're not planning on following Admiral Hackett's stipulation," Miranda stated.

"Maybe I will," I shrugged. "But I'd like to have a couple people standing by, just in case I need someone to keep me company or back me up."

"I have some familiarity with prisons," Thane offered. "Some of my previous assassinations involved targets who had been taken into police custody."

"And I've danced through a couple batarian bases in my time," Kasumi added.

"Perfect," I nodded. I was hoping they'd volunteer. Their names were the first that came to mind for an operation like this.

Zaeed lifted his hand as if to volunteer, then lowered it. "You plannin' on shooting your way in and gettin' this doc out in a sea of blood, I'm your guy," he explained his change of heart. "Sneakin' in... you want a small team of specialists. Don't want it to get too big, 'less you wanna trip over each other."

"Appreciate the offer, though," I said.

"What do we know about the guards?" Thane asked, getting down to business. "You mentioned a rough estimate in terms of numbers."

"Fifty or sixty," I repeated, "based on personnel numbers, transfer of personnel and quantities of food and drink. No biotics or mechs from what I saw. Most of the guards are packing M-8 Avengers, though some of the higher-ups have access to M-15 Vindicators.

"As for defences, it looks like they either have the standard shield package or shields plus a set of tech armour. If things go sideways and I have to shoot my way out, it might be a good idea to expand my anti-shield capabilities beyond disruptor mods. Any ideas?"

"We could rig your omni-tool to deliver an electromagnetic pulse," Miranda said speculatively.

"Might require building a couple components, but the Normandy's fabrication systems are more than up to the task," Garrus added.

Tali made a dismissive noise. "I can do better than that," she said. "_My_ omni-tool has a device that drains the energy from any kinetic barrier it's directed towards. Not only does the resulting effect closely mimic an EMP, it also transfers the energy to bolster your own kinetic barriers."

Miranda, Garrus and Kasumi looked very interested. Couldn't blame them, to be honest. "Nice," I approved. "How long would it take for you to make the necessary modifications?"

"Probably an hour," Tali suggested. "More depending on how much fuss you raise on being parted from your omni-tool and how much crap you have installed."

My eyes narrowed. "Crap? I do not have crap installed on my omni-tool."

"I'm not sure, Shepard," Miranda murmured. "I've heard some of your 'music', remember?"

I glared at Miranda. "We'll talk later," I told her. "In private." She smiled sweetly, completely and utterly unconcerned.

Kasumi brought up another concern. "I don't suppose you know _where _Dr. Kenson is being held."

"'Fraid not," I shook my head, ignoring Miranda for the moment. "But here's a rough schematic of the prison." The exterior was replaced by a wireframe model of the interior. "Cellblocks are here." A bunch of rooms turned red at the tap of a key. "And the interrogation rooms are here." One more tap, highlighted a couple more rooms in orange. "Chances are she's in one of those areas."

"How do you plan on getting in?" Garrus asked. "There's bound to be loads of spy satellites and sensor arrays scattered in orbit around Aratoht. Spirits, every planet in the _system _probably has them. Even if the Normandy could sneak past all that, she can't land without assistance. That leaves the shuttle—which doesn't have the Normandy's stealth capabilities." **(8)**

"Garrus has a point," Zaeed agreed. "Insertion's gonna be a bitch. And the Normandy might not be as safe as you think, either. Hegemony's seriously paranoid. They've got tons of tech to detect people and ships doing anything from sneaking around to tryin' to live their goddamn lives. I swear they keep records of every batarian and every slave, right down to what they eat, what they drink and when they go to take a leak. You know, that reminds me—"

"Got that covered," I replied quickly, before Zaeed got sidetracked into reminiscing about the good old days. "Seems the prison warden did a bit of travel outside batarian space before settling down at Aratoht. During that time, he developed a certain... addiction, I guess you could call it."

"Red sand," Jack said firmly.

"Nope," I shook my head.

"Ryncol?" Grunt grinned.

"Nope."

"Porn?" That was Zaeed.

"Nope."

"Some kind of narcotic or alcoholic beverage?" Garrus suggested.

"That's so vague, it's cheating," I told him. "And no."

"Then what vice did the warden fall victim to?" Samara asked.

"Caf-Pow."

I got a chorus of "Huh?" and "What's that?" Fair enough—not everyone had heard of it. "It's a highly caffeinated energy drink," I said. "Kinda like 'Red Janey.' It's the favoured drink of teenagers, hackers, caffeine addicts who hate coffee and tea... and, apparently, a certain batarian prison warden."

And, apparently, a certain salarian scientist, considering how Mordin was nodding. Which was slightly alarming, when you thought about it: he was hyper enough _without _Caf-Pow. Imagining him in the throes of a full-blown Caf-Pow rush was scary as hell. I set that thought aside and continued. "Through various channels and intermediaries, he's arranged for monthly shipments of Caf-Pow to be delivered directly to Aratoht. All we have to do is find out where the Caf-Pow comes from and sneak aboard the transport. Then we sit back and relax until we touch down on Aratoht."

"Point of origin critical," the supposedly un-caffeinated Mordin said. "Did Liara provide that intel?"

"Not yet," I admitted. "She's narrowed it down, though. Says she should have it within the next hour or so. Once she does, the Normandy can drop Thane, Kasumi and I off. Then we'll sneak aboard, get a free ride to Aratoht and bust Dr. Kenson loose."

"And you're hoping to get out the same way?" Jack asked.

"Something like that," I said. "Either that, or find some other ship. Prison transport, shuttle, that kinda thing."

"There are a lot of unknowns there," Miranda frowned.

"Story of my life," I sighed. "But that's where you guys come in. After you drop us off, I want you to wait around. When the transport takes off, follow it through the mass relay—or relays, if we need to travel through more than one—into the Bahak system."

Miranda's frown quickly became a smile. "Perfect! Any stray emissions or readings that come from exiting the relay would be attributed to the transport instead."

"And your average run-of-the-mill transport wouldn't pick up the Normandy in the first place," Tali added.

"Exactly," I declared. "Once you're in, loiter around the edges of the system. If things go sideways and we need an emergency extraction, we'll contact you. Our comms should be able to stretch out that far."

"And if they do not?" Thane asked. "What if the prison presents some kind of interference? From jamming technology or the composition of its walls?"

I shrugged. "One of us can stay outside and act as a relay while the other two go in, I guess. We'll play it by ear." **(9)**

* * *

That was pretty much it for the briefing. Everyone went back to do whatever they usually did. I dropped by the Armoury. More to reassure myself of my choice in weaponry than anything else—I'd already decided to stick with the Phalanx, the Locust, and the Widow because I was so used to them by now, it would throw my game off if I experimented with another heavy pistol, submachine gun or sniper rifle now—which was why trying my hand with shotguns or assault rifles now was also off the table. Besides, they were extremely effective weapons. I did debate whether to switch out the grenade launcher for another heavy weapon, or whether I should bring one at all—they did weigh a lot, after all. In the end, I kept the grenade launcher. You never know.

Next, I returned to my cabin to decide which of my hardsuits to wear. That's a bit misleading, come to think of it—I didn't have _that _many hardsuits, after all.

N7 Armour was out from the get-go: wearing something with Alliance colours and a big honkin' N7 logo slapped on the front pretty much defeated the whole exercise of pretending this had nothing to do with the Alliance. Granted, there might be those who thought I was trying to frame the Alliance, but not enough to make it worth the risk.

I quickly nixed my Eclipse armour as well. **(10)** Never got around to tinkering with it since I first got the damn thing. Downloading all the software upgrades, syncing it to my biometrics and calibrating it to my liking would take way too long.

Believe it or not, I actually debated wearing my Cerberus Assault Armour. Decent protection, decent shields and it effectively boosted the amount of heavy weapon ammo I could carry. And it did sport the colours and logo of that ever-so-wonderful terrorist group. Risking someone casting a suspicious eye at the Alliance wasn't worth it, but Cerberus? Yeah, that I didn't mind so much. But there was still a problem, one of the problems that had discouraged me from wearing it in the first place—it weighed a _ton_. I could barely move in the damn thing and it made so much noise clomping around that you'd have to be deaf not to hear it. Sure, it was good for soaking up damage. Sneaking around? Not so much.

That left me with the Kestrel Armour. I was already wearing the shoulder pauldrons, gauntlets and leg plates, since it was interchangeable with the modular and therefore customizable N7 armour. Going with the full set would enhance my physical strength, increase the amount of damage I could do and expand my heavy ammo capacity. Most importantly, donning the Kestrel Armour in its entirety boosted my shield capacity by a full _twenty-five percent._ A winner, in my opinion.

Now I just had to figure out the colour scheme. Brown? Boring. Urban camo pattern? That had possibilities. Something resembling a Blue Suns uniform? Maybe—I was partial to blue. Hey, while I was experimenting, maybe I could try something a little more wacky. Just for kicks. Let's see now... oh, that was hilarious. That one... oh geez.

That was how Miranda found me—picking hilarious choices in colour schemes, looking at the results in the mirror and laughing my head off. "I really hope you're not going like that, Shepard."

I looked down at my current choice. "You think neon green and hot purple stands out?"

"Definitely," she said. "Unless you're colour-blind."

"Fine," I sighed.

There was a pause. Which quickly grew into an awkward silence. "So," I said.

"So," Miranda echoed.

"What do you think of the plan?" I asked, in an effort to move this conversation along.

"You've acquired as much intel as you could, formulated a plan with a reasonable chance of success and addressed most of the concerns," Miranda replied. "At this point, waiting for any more intel would have diminishing returns, particularly while Dr. Kenson is rotting away on Aratoht at the tender mercies of the batarians."

"And you're okay with..." I trailed off.

"Not being part of your team?" Miranda finished. She shook her head. "No. Disappointed, perhaps. But I must concede that this mission requires a more specialized skill set than I can offer. Thane and Kasumi are the optimal teammates. Furthermore, they're part of Team One, so they're used to anticipating and reacting to your decisions."

That was true. And I expected nothing less from her. The Miranda I met back when I was first waking up might not have set her ego aside so willingly, but this Miranda was another matter. Still, no matter how much she might have changed or grown, it couldn't have been easy coming to those conclusions. Which was why I needed to voice something else: "If something unexpected does come up, it'll be a relief knowing that the Normandy's in the hands of someone who can keep everyone in one piece and figure out the best contingency scenario. Your hands."

"You don't need to state the obvious, you know," Miranda said, breaking into a slight smile.

"No," I agreed, "but I want to. Because..."

I trailed off. This was my chance to say something. Maybe it was important to say it. Maybe it wasn't. But if there was a time to say it, this might be it. **(11)**

"Yes, Shepard?" Miranda prompted.

"Because... well..."

Say it, Shepard. Say it.

"... because... credit should be given where credit's due."

A part of me sagged in relief. The rest of me face palmed in disbelief.

Miranda smiled a little more. "Thanks, Shepard. I have some things to do, so I'll leave you to... explore your options. Hopefully your final choice won't be quite so conspicuous."

"No promises," I replied. Miranda rolled her eyes and left the cabin.

I looked back at the mirror. Was it just me, or was my reflection accusing me of something. "What?" I asked out loud, staring my reflection in the eye.

My reflection stared back.

"Look. It's no big deal."

My reflection continued to stare.

"It can wait until I get back."

My reflection continued to stare. I ignored it and switched to a hot pink and taupe pattern. Because I was right. Whatever I had to say, it could wait. I had time to figure out what exactly to say and how to say it.

Right?

* * *

_(1): Actually, Shepard did acquire 1250 units of element zero during his last visit. Sadly, he did not find any new schematics or upgrades. I'm chagrined to admit that his recollection of my contribution to our brief conversation was correct, right down to the last word. _

_(2): During Shepard's hunt for Saren, he often complained that Admiral Hackett had a habit of contacting him over the comm and requesting his assistance on assignments of comparatively lower, sometimes seemingly trivial, importance and priority. Nonetheless, he maintained a great deal of respect for Hackett, a gesture that was reciprocated._

_(3): Hackett later informed me that he had teams from the 103__rd__ Marine Division standing by in case Shepard declined to help. Ironically, he was reluctant to send them because initial casualty projections were high._

_(4): The First, Third and Fifth Fleets rallied to defend the Citadel Council during the Battle of the Citadel in 2183, sacrificing a third of their ships—and the men and women who served aboard them—in the process. By 2186, the Alliance was still trying to rebuild the fleets to their former strength._

_(5): Hackett later admitted that, in hindsight, most of those requests did not justify pulling Shepard off his primary assignment. However, he also explained that he went back to Shepard time and time again because of the twin allure of the lack of paperwork and authorization required, coupled with the undeniable efficiency and efficacy of Shepard's performance._

_(6): Astute readers will recognize that the trust Hackett had in Shepard was being echoed by Shepard's trust in his squad and his crew._

_(7): Specifically, the Viper Nebula was one relay jump from the Exodus Cluster—which houses Arcturus Station, the military headquarters for the Alliance Navy and the headquarters for the Alliance Parliament—and two jumps from the Sol system, birthplace of humanity._

_(8): A fact that was being addressed, though Shepard and the others would not find out until later that year._

_(9): A human saying meaning to make decisions in an impromptu or improvisational manner as the situation develops, rather than planning out a contingency in advance, something that Shepard was intimately familiar with. _

_(10): Shepard acquired a set of Eclipse armour while thwarting a hijacking and piracy operation from that mercenary group. The events of that mission are covered in another set of personal logs and need not concern us at this time._

_(11): Specifically, this would be a good time for Shepard to tell Miranda—out loud—how he truly felt, something that he hadn't done up to this point._


	2. Prison Break

**Chapter 2: Prison Break**

Liara came through for us, as I knew she would. Once she sent us the location, Joker flew us over. We exchanged various goodbyes and wishes of good luck before Kasumi, Thane and I got into the shuttle and flew down to the starport. From there, it didn't take long before we found the transport and snuck on board. **(1)**

The trip was short and uneventful, for which I was grateful. If things started falling apart before we even _got _to Aratoht, then we might have had a problem. But nothing happened. A good sign, I thought.

Before we knew it, the transport was touching down. The three of us hid while the cargo—protein bars, thermal clips and, of course, a crate of Caf-Pow—was being unloaded. I tensed as a couple workers—or slaves, I couldn't tell for sure—got a little too close for comfort… but they never moved the crates we were hiding behind. And why would they? Why would they need fertilizer when the slaves provided all the fertilizer they could ever use? Yeah, it's not very sanitary, but it's not as if the Hegemony really cared about that sort of thing.

But I digress.

We used our HUDs to make sure the coast was clear before standing up. Having confirmed the absence of hostiles with our own eyeballs, we quickly made haste in getting out of the cargo hold—only to immediately regret it as we stepped outside. Well, Kasumi and I regretted walking into what felt like a wall of hot air. Given that his people evolved on a desert planet before overpopulation drove them from their homeworld, Thane might have found it comfortable. Actually, maybe not—all that humidity probably exacerbated his Kepral's syndrome. In the end, all I knew for sure was that a) no one voiced a peep of protest or complaint and b) we were definitely on the right planet.

As it turned out, we got out at the right time. The transport's ramp retracted just as we stepped off. We scrambled for cover as the hatch closed, not wanting to get barbequed in the backwash of the engines. We huddled behind a conveniently situated pile of crates as the transport took off. Once the din died down, we stood up and looked around.

It was dark. Gloomy. Depressing. The only illumination came from the light panels attached to the prison's outer walls and one of Aratoht's sister planets reflecting the light from the sun. **(2)** And we were getting drenched by rain, which was quite common in this region. Undeterred by the downpour, a bird flew out from the shelter of a nearby tree and disappeared into the night.

Time to get to work.

We pulled out our weapons—already outfitted with fresh thermal clips and disruptor mods, thanks to the copious amounts of spare time we had during our mercifully quiet trip—and headed for the closest door.

Kasumi was the first to voice the minor, almost inconsequential detail that had caught my attention: "Shouldn't there be a guard?"

"Or a vid-cam," Thane agreed. "Quite suspicious. Perhaps another sign of the difficult times that have plagued this prison. At least the door is locked."

It was. And a stubborn lock, too. Normally when I see these locks, I can access the software and start hacking away. This time, it just flashed a particularly angry shade of red. _"Access is restricted," _a recording told me. _"Enter authorization code."_

Kasumi didn't have any more luck than I did. I was just about to try again when a thought occurred to me. "Shep?" Kasumi frowned as I started running my hands up and down the walls.

"What are you looking for, Shepard?" Thane asked as I rounded the corner.

"Hang on," I said. "It should be right… about… here!" I knelt down, brushed away the plants covering the access hatch and pulled it open. Peering inside, I looked it over and decided I knew what I was doing—always a scary proposition, I know. I reached inside, got a firm grip and pulled.

I peeked around the corner just in time to see the door indicator status switch from red to green. Kasumi and Thane looked at each other, then looked at me. "What did you do, Shep?" Kasumi asked as the door retracted into the ground.

"Found the power relay for the door and pulled a couple wires," I replied.

"Well done," Thane complimented me.

"Thanks," I replied. It was sheer luck, to be honest. Cutting the power could have just as easily locked the door permanently, triggered an alarm or do something similarly unfortunate. In fact, there was no guarantee that it hadn't done just that. We'd just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best. **(3) **

If there was a contest for 'Worst-kept Prison,' this place would definitely be a shoo-in. Poor lighting, mainly because every other light panel was broken. Concrete walls riddled with cracks or worse—some parts seemed to be actually sagging inwards. The floor was composed of concrete slabs that didn't quite fit together, judging by all the cracks, gaps and uneven footing. On my left, I could see a row of vertical metal bars set into the floor and ceiling. Either they were meant to hold someone in—until that would-be prisoner bent the bars and escaped—or they were some slapdash attempt at providing structural support—in which case, I'd say that whole section was gonna collapse sometime in the next couple years.

I did a quick comm check. They were working just fine. No one was jamming anything. Yet. That was a good sign, I thought. Kasumi and Thane followed my lead as I took a right; water dripped on our heads. Mentally adding leaky ceilings to the list of charming architectural features, I was about to continue when I noticed something on my HUD. I followed the signal to the left, like a cat following a scent. Squeezing past some more rickety metal bars and squirming around a trio of metal pipes that probably carried water or sewage or something, I found some catnip. Well, actually it was refined iridium, but I figured that was close enough. **(4)** As long as you didn't try to eat it. A varren had apparently found that out the hard way. Quite a while ago, judging by the state of decomposition.

Kasumi and Thane were waiting for me. "We may have a problem," Thane told me.

Yeah, I could see what he was talking about. A big hole in the floor that stretched on for several metres definitely qualified as a problem in my book. Yet another sign that this prison was falling apart.

Or not, I decided, seeing a control panel built into the floor. 'Bridge control,' it read. Maybe this was a deliberate design feature to keep the prisoners contained. A bit low-tech, but still effective nonetheless.

"Don't bother," Kasumi said when I bent down to activate the bridge control. "I already tried it."

"Doesn't work?" I guessed.

"Doesn't work," she confirmed.

"Then either we find another way to extend the bridge, locate an alternate route or hope we can jump really far," I relied.

"I vote for option one," Kasumi said.

"There appears to be another bridge control directly below us," Thane explained, pointing down.

He was right. Peering through the hole in the ground, I could see the glint of another control panel. A quick search found a ramp that led down.

I stopped halfway down the ramp to read another sign: 'Guards are reminded NOT to feed the Batarian War Beasts unless authorized by designated supervisors or executioners.'

Ooookaaaayy… I exchanged looks with my teammates and gripped my weapon a little tighter before proceeding the rest of the way down.

Apparently we made too much noise and woke the Dreaded Batarian War Beast. A dose of plasma and biotics put it down. I squinted, scratched my head and turned to Kasumi and Thane. "Is it just me, or does that 'Batarian War Beast' look like a varren?"

"Yeah, that's a varren," Kasumi confirmed. "Maybe the batarians have a different name for them than everyone else in the galaxy."

Thane had taken a few steps forward. "Now I see the other purpose for the bridge," he said, nudging something forward with his foot. We looked at the thoroughly gnawed thigh bone. "The batarians must send their prisoners down here, either for fun or to feed the varren.

Good thing my last meal was fully digested. Puking my guts out in front of the team wouldn't do much for my image. "We'd better find Dr. Kenson fast," I said.

I found the bridge control and activated it. Seeing the bridge extend overhead, I led Kasumi and Thane back up and across. We quickly crept past murky hallways and exposed girders, ignored the varren that had apparently starved to death in the jail cell, turned right, went past the dead varren lying next to a stack of crates—apparently they didn't have a source of food aside from prisoners here. Kinda depressing, really—turned left and went up the stairs.

We heard a sharp crack. At first, I thought it was a gunshot. The shower of plaster bouncing off my shoulder quickly corrected me. "Okay, I know Liara's intel said this place is run down, and prisons aren't necessarily a luxury resort or anything, but this is ridiculous," I whispered.

"That's why I hate breaking into them," Kasumi whispered back. "The loot's almost never worth the décor or scenery."

Thane had his eyes closed. His head jerked. For a moment, I thought he was reliving another memory. Then his eyes opened. "Another varren approaches from the left."

Damn, he had good hearing. I looked around. The path in front of us was blocked by another hole in the ground. Past the hole, a string of security lasers blocked the corridor. To the left of us was a side corridor, with a control panel set into the wall. I had just enough time to activate it before the varren came charging down the corridor with a growl. Once again, plasma and biotics was the solution to that four-legged problem.

If my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, it looked like that control panel shut down the security lasers. And the corridor that the varren ran down might take us around the gaping hole in the ground.

We followed the corridor and turned right. Up ahead, I could see the corridor end in a T-shaped junction. The left side was blocked with more security lasers.

"Get the human into questioning!" we heard a male voice growl. For a moment, I thought we were hearing him through the pipes running along the wall. Then I realized it was coming up ahead and to the left—on the other side of those security lasers. "Get your hands off me!" another voice, female, snapped. Dr. Kenson, I presumed. Unless batarians had British accents too.

We stopped at the security lasers and peered through. A door—locked. More dirty, cracked walls. Another dead varren. No control panel that I could see. "Can either of you get through there?" I asked, tilting my head towards the lasers.

Kasumi and Thane looked at each other before shaking their heads in unison.

"Then I guess we're taking the long way around," I sighed. "Come on."

We continued along the corridor and took a left, seeing how going right would take us into and down the big, dark hole. It was a bit brighter here, but that just meant we could admire the rough concrete in greater detail. I mean, really: even Alliance prisons looked better than this dump.

A trail of pipes laid against the upper wall led us into a darker region… and right into a dead end blocked by a grate. I looked around. Nothing. So I tried doing a scan of the area. "Interesting," I said when the results came back.

"Shepard?" Thane prompted.

I pointed to a section of wall to our right. "This area's weaker than the rest. One good push should knock it over.

"I don't think we have that many bullets, Shep," Kasumi frowned.

"That's okay," I said absently. My eyes moved from one of the pipes to a seemingly innocuous valve. "I've got another idea. Get back."

As soon as Kasumi and Thane were out of harm's way, I took a step back myself, lifted my arm and fired off another fireball. The plasma hit the pipe, burned its way through the cheap metal and ignited the gas flowing through it with a dull explosion. "Great," Kasumi said with just a little sarcasm as torrents of flame roared from either side of the damaged pipe. "You set something on fire, Shep. Again."

Kneeling down, I turned the valve. The twin jets of flame disappeared, only to reappear in front of the dead end. We could now see a hole in the wall, thanks to the explosion. "Effective," Thane conceded. "I hope the guards didn't hear it, though."

"Fingers crossed," I shrugged.

Unfortunately, we only got so far before our path was blocked again. This time, it was by two pipes, each with a gust of gas-fuelled flame gushing out. "For the record, that's not my fault," I declared.

"Yeah, yeah," Kasumi dismissed with a wave. "Which way, Shep?"

I checked the map on my omni-tool. "Left," I said, "but it looks like there's a locker room immediately to the right, behind those flames. "Might be worth checking out, if we can shut the gas off—what are you doing?"

Ignoring me, Kasumi took a few steps forward, crouched down by the valve she'd found and turned it with a grunt. One of the burning pipes went out. "I don't suppose we could crawl underneath it," I suggested doubtfully.

Thane assessed the scene before us and shook his head. "I would not recommend it."

"Then I guess we have to go left after all," I said.

That turned out to be a mixed blessing. True, we had to take down another varren in the same way we had dealt with his buddies. But we did find another gas valve. I bent down, turned it...

…and jumped back just in time to avoid being barbequed. Seriously, how many broken gas pipes were there in this place? It was a miracle the whole damn thing didn't go up in smoke. "Well, hopefully the locker room is clear now," I said.

Sure enough, it was. The locker room was just as spartan as the rest of the prison. At least everything wasn't in concrete this time. It was all in metal. Corrugated metal floor. Metal walls. Metal table and chairs, with a datapad lying on top. Reaching over, I thumbed it on.

"_Personal log," _a deep voice rumbled. _"I hear humans are scurrying like vermin out in the asteroid belt."_

Not just in the asteroid belt. This vermin was busy swiping credits from a locker that some poor sap had forgotten to close.

"_Is anywhere safe from them?"_

Nope. Not the asteroid belt. Not the prison. Certainly not the back corner of the locker room, where some other forgetful soul had left a schematic for some doodad that could boost a heavy weapon's ammo supply.

"_We should arm a mission to flush them all out."_

Yeah, keep dreaming, buddy.

"Curious," Thane said.

"If you're talking about batarian disdain for humans, it's not that surprising," I told him.

Thane shook his head. "You misunderstand, Shepard. I was referring to the lack of vid-cams in this facility." He nodded his head towards the corner. A bunch of stray wires dangled from the ceiling, presumably where a vid-cam used to reside before being unceremoniously ripped out.

"Maybe there are some hidden vid-cams lying around," I suggested.

"Maybe," Kasumi said doubtfully. "I've been looking, though—comes with the job; old habits die hard, that sort of thing. Used my eyes, used my gut, used my omni-tool, used all sorts of sensor tricks that you're never gonna know about because a girl's gotta have a couple secrets."

"And?" I prompted.

"Nothing. Zippo, zilch, nada."

"Guess that's what happens when you don't get a lot of prisoners," I mused. "Gotta find some way to pay the bills." No wonder this place was such a dump. "Well, we've searched this place long enough. Time to move on. Keep your eyes peeled, will ya?"

We left the locker room, went back into the corridor where we met the varren, rerouted the gas again and continued on our way. A flight of stairs led us up and out of the dull, boring concrete jungle into a dull, boring metal jungle. Variety is the spice of life, I guess. We headed around the corner after consulting the map again and started heading up the stairs.

"They wanted to slam an asteroid into the mass relay," we heard. The three of us froze on the spot. Thane reached over, tapped Kasumi and I on the shoulder to get our attention, and pointed up ahead and to our left.

"Can they even do that?" a second voice asked as we reached the top of the stairs. Sounded like the two guys—guards, I guessed—were chatting from a room. There weren't any windows, the door wasn't locked and they weren't talking very loud. I guess the walls were just that thin. I lifted a finger to my mouth and gestured for Kasumi and Thane to stay quiet. "What difference does it make?" the first voice scoffed as we crept away and up another flight of stairs. "We caught 'em."

We found ourselves in some sort of lunchroom, judging by all the dull red cabinets, the microwave, a coffee pot—still steaming, cream and sugar, and a couple ratty black sofas. A cursory scan didn't reveal any goodies, and we didn't have time to indulge my kleptomania and search the cabinets for loot, so we went out the door.

A torrential downpour greeted us. We were back outside again. At least there was a little bit of greenery amongst the prison walls. Almost made the returning humidity worth it. We crouched down behind a fence before carefully poking our heads up and looking around. A courtyard lay before us, with a couple buildings scattered around. At the far end, a lone guard was smoking a cigarette. Out of curiosity, I pulled out my sniper rifle and took a peek. 37 metres. Easy shot. But a headless guard might rouse suspicion, so I let him toss his cigarette away and go back inside.

Time to check the map again. Okay, we wanted to enter the building at the far end, the one the smoker had entered. Unfortunately, there was no direct path. Not unless I could climb up and over a pile of barrels. The barrels covered in so much grease that I could see it all the way over here. I wouldn't be able to get enough of a grip to get over them, though it might be funny to see me try. Let's see… maybe I could get there through the building in the middle. There was no entrance on the ground level, unfortunately. There was a roof entrance, but someone had thought of that and set up a bunch of security lasers all over it. So why had someone conveniently stacked a couple crates against the wall? Maybe the prison staff knew there was only one way in and improvised a way to get there. Which meant there was a way past the lasers. Of course, we'd have to find it first.

We were just about to head into the courtyard when I noticed two bio-signs on my HUD. Walking in the courtyard. Uh oh.

I motioned for Kasumi and Thane to wait. "They've still got her down in the prison," we heard.

"Still?"

"Yeah." The two voices came into view. Batarian prison guards. "Stubborn bitch doesn't wanna talk," the first guy was saying.

"What's the big fucking deal?" the second guy demanded.

"Weren't you listening? She's a terrorist!" The first guy tried to swat his partner on the back of his head.

The second guy ducked. "All humans are terrorists," he said. "If it was up to me, I'd just kill her. Interrogating a human's a waste of time."

"Yeah, well, it's not up to you."

"It could have been."

"That was before you got yourself in deep shit."

"How was I supposed to know she was the commandant's daughter?"

"It's called watching the news."

"You can't trust the news. Everyone knows that. Just a bunch of bullshit about how great the Hegemony is and if we all do our part for the state we'll take our rightful place in the galaxy and…" The voices trailed off.

I led the team down into the courtyard, over to the target building and started searching around. Sure enough, there was a control panel. I opened it, cracked my knuckles and prepared to hack the sucker… only to realize that there was no need. Someone had already re-routed the thing. All I had to do was flip a switch and the security lasers would shut down. Either someone was really lazy or this was a trap. But there was only one way to find out. I reached over and flipped the switch.

Nothing. Yet. I waited a whole minute before giving up. If this was a trap, we'd find out soon enough. If not, we had nothing to lose and everything to gain by going forward. So up to the roof and through the door we went.

We entered another lunchroom. This one had a safe full of credits for the taking. Just goes to show you that everyone's the same. Didn't matter how rich or poor you were. What planet you came from. How many eyes you had. Everyone had the same bad habit of leaving random valuables strewn all over the place for some determined kleptomaniac to find and liberate. **(5)**

Now to get out of here and over to the building I intended to enter. I headed to the door and reached for the controls…

…only to stare out the window. Not much of a view, what with the rain and the building. But that was all right. I was more interested in the guard I saw. Quickly ducking down, I mosied over to the window and checked my HUD. Two guards. Okay—not going out that way unless I wanted to get into a fight.

So we backtracked. Found a catwalk that led to another part of the building. And a locker room nearby had more iridium for the taking. And a door that led outside… except there was another pair of guards on a cigarette break.

Back upstairs and across the catwalk we went. This was getting ridiculous. All I wanted was to get into a certain building. Was that too much to ask?

"Shep?"

I looked at Kasumi. She pointed a finger towards… the window. Oh you gotta be kidding me.

But it worked. There were a couple crates stacked just below the window so it wasn't like we were jumping off the second floor to our death. From there, it was a nice, guard-free and rainy couple of steps to the building. There were even a set of stairs free of any clutter.

Finally.

The building had more corrugated metal floors and metal walls. But there were also windows. And it seemed cleaner. The overall maintenance and upkeep in this building was definitely the best we'd seen so far. Which probably meant we were getting close. I checked the map again. Yep. _Definitely _getting close.

I snuck forward and took a quick peek. The corridor took a left and meandered to the right around a room with windows, which were partially covered by blinds. Motioning for Kasumi and Thane to follow, we crept underneath the windows. I paused by the door and craned my head, just enough to get a glimpse of the room. Looked like another lunchroom. Or maybe an office. There were two or three guards inside. "No way it would've worked," we heard one of them scoff. "Relays can't be damaged, much less destroyed."

Say what now?

"Those humans will do anything to destroy us, I swear," a deeper voice declared.

Right. A human looking for Reaper artifacts decided to blow up a fricking mass relay because she got bored. Clearly the Hegemony's propaganda machine was working overtime to spin out that level of misinformation.

"We have to make this one an example to the others," a third voice said firmly. "We can't respond kindly to terrorists."

"Fine. _You _make an example of her."

"You don't want to? Where's your loyalty to the Hegemony?"

"Worn down by working non-stop for forty-seven days straight—and that was before we caught all those humans! Is it too much to ask for a single night off? I mean, there's over three hundred thousand people in this colony, right?"

"Weakling."

"Tool."

Time to move on. One by one, we crept past the door and along the corridor. We started to go around the corner, paused to let a guard casually walk through a door at the far end rather than glimpse us sneaking around, then proceeded to go around the corner, past the other door to the lunchroom and down the hall.

Aside from the door, the far end of the hall also had a catwalk that overlooked a large room. Unlike the other rooms we'd seen, this one was relatively clear of debris. Some kind of landing pad, perhaps?

"_There's a shuttle incoming," _we heard over a hidden comm speaker. _"Clear the hangar bay."_

Ah. Close enough. As we watched, a shuttle flew into view and touched down. Good thing no one was actually in the hangar bay. That warning wasn't enough time, not unless you wanted to get roasted by the thruster exhaust. "Guess we've found our way out," I whispered, as a set of hangar doors closed.

"Yep," Kasumi nodded.

"Indeed," Thane agreed.

The next room we entered was some kind of cargo bay. Made sense, considering it was right next to the hangar bay. Across the walkway was a door, which was locked. Once again, the walls were thin enough for us to eavesdrop on a fascinating conversation between a couple guards. "I heard an artifact was found in that asteroid belt," one guy said. "Think the humans got it?"

"Nah," the other one laughed. "They're humans, remember? Only got the two eyes? Besides, if they did find something, they'd have swarmed in, put flags all over it and held a damn press conference."

"Yeah, you're right," the first voice laughed. "Stupid humans."

The stupid human didn't see the other stupid human he was looking for, so he had to figure out how to get out of here. The door wasn't an option, unless I wanted to have a seriously awkward conversation with the batarian guards. So that left the other door. Below me, in the corner.

Naturally, there were no stairs, ramps or conveniently placed crates. And none of us could get down without breaking a couple bones. Well, Thane might be able to do something with his biotics, but I don't think he could levitate all three of us down.

I looked around. Lots of crates, which wasn't a surprise considering this was a cargo bay, but none of them were close enough. Plenty of barrels, but they were too far as well. There was an automated crane, though. And a vehicle lift. That had promise.

Sure enough, that was the ticket. Once I found the controls and figured out how to make them work, I managed to get us down without a hitch. **(6)**

As we left the cargo bay, I saw we were back to the crumbly, patchwork concrete slum, right down to the stark metal girders barely holding everything upright and the leaky ceilings. That charming décor continued through the corridor, past another set of security lasers and into an adjacent room that looked like a security office. There were no lasers in the office, so there was nothing to stop me from waltzing in and helping myself to another stash of credits. Anything to line my wallet.

While I was here, I played around with some of the monitors. All of which were clearly marked for prison surveillance feeds, all of which were showing nothing but static—guess the vid-cams did get cannibalized or sold off after all.

Once I got bored of the static, I moved onto the computer. Last year's prison schedules, this year's prison schedules, porn, a draft copy of a grievance being filed over the fact that the next month's prison schedule hadn't been posted yet… ooh! Security log! That looked promising. I sifted through the logs until I found the last entry.

"_Our comm buoy intercepts paid off," _a guy said. _"We picked up a message to the Alliance coming from somewhere in the asteroid belt. We listened to the feed until we discovered an operation run by a human named Kenson. She was smuggling engine parts and guidance equipment into the system from Omega."_

I paused the log and looked at my team. "Well, I guess we know how the batarians found her," I said.

"Yeah," Kasumi frowned. "But why did she have to smuggle all that stuff from Omega? Why did she need to smuggle anything in at all?"

"Perhaps their mode of transport was damaged," Thane suggested.

"Maybe," I said doubtfully. "But if it was really so bad, why didn't they just contact the Alliance and arrange for an extraction? Why order parts and equipment from another system and smuggle them in one at a time, when they know—or should know—that would dramatically increases the odds of getting caught?"

None of us could find any answers, so I resumed the playback: _"We intercepted Kenson's vessel and took her and her people into custody. Interrogation has produced nothing but frenzied rambling so far."_

Oh great. We might have _more _people to rescue. Not to mention more unanswered questions. This was getting as complicated and convoluted as the route we'd been taking to get through this prison. Which reminded me: how were we gonna get past the—

The security lasers went out. I looked up and saw Kasumi casually leaning against the wall. Right next to a control panel, which she'd used to turn off the lasers. "Coming, Shep?"

"Hang on." I turned my attention back to the computer. Maybe I could use it to do a bit of hacking. Snag a couple more credits, find out where Dr. Kenson and the others were, finagle with guard patrols to clear us a path out of here—

_**Fatal error* _was the only warning I got before the screen went dark. A cloud of smoke billowed into my face. Great, I thought, waving the smoke away. So much for that idea. I checked the HUD. Nothing. So we walked down the corridor, constantly checking for contacts.

Turned out we heard them before our sensors picked them up. We hid behind a stack of crates and listened in. People should really listen more. It's amazing what you can learn if you stop yakking away. Case in point: another pair of guards talking about the hot topic of the day. "This one's apparently the mastermind."

"Didn't you say that about the last guy?" the second voice asked sarcastically. "And the guy before that? And the—"

"Oh, shut up," the first voice snarled.

"Well, I hope you're right," the second voice sighed. "We executed the rest of them. She's the only one left now."

OK. Maybe we didn't have to worry about anyone else. That was a relief. Wait—was I _glad _everyone else was dead? Did that make me a bad person?

"If she doesn't talk, put her in the pit like the others," the first voice ordered. "The war beasts are starving."

"They wouldn't be starving if we didn't waste all that money on the boss's human drinks."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

We snuck past the guards, who were now bickering about Caf-Pow and how much it tasted like crap. As we crept down the hall, we checked every room. All empty. Empty, empty, empty. Which left the last door at the very end of the hall.

Please let Dr. Kenson be in here, I prayed. If I had to navigate one more twist and turn, I was gonna go mental… wait a sec. I came back from the dead. I hung around with terrorists. I sauntered into lots of deathtraps, somehow leaving with my skin intact and a hefty body count. I solved the great big mystery of what happened to the Protheans. I stumbled into more life-or-death situations, somehow clinging to the former while the hostiles fell into the latter. I merrily waltzed into one doozy of a suicide mission and somehow made it out in one piece. After all that, I think it was safe to say I was _already_ certifiable. **(7)**

It was with that cheerful thought in mind that I approached that last door. Before opening it up, I cranked up the gain on my helmet's audio sensors and listened. "I'll ask you again," a harsh male voice asked. Probably another guard. "Where is your base?"

"You're wasting time," Dr. Kenson insisted. "The Reapers _are_ coming!"

"The Reapers are coming here," the guard stated doubtfully. "To this relay. Really? That's the best you can do?"

"Every moment you keep me here brings them closer," Dr. Kenson insisted.

"So I should let you go destroy the relay then? Just destroy this system? Kill all the batarians here while your human colonies are spared?"

"This is bigger than your people or mine. But you wouldn't understand. Do what you want, batarian. Torturing me won't save you."

"Maybe not. But it'll be so much fun."

OK. Time to move. I activated the door control and entered the room. A vertical apparatus—and the grey-haired human woman strapped into it—dominated the centre. As we watched, a batarian tapped his omni-tool. A mechanical arm lowered, bringing a two-pronged device in line with her neck. I wasn't sure what it was or how it worked, but it was safe to say that it wouldn't be pleasant. The electricity crackling along each prong kinda gave it away.

I coughed—partly to be polite, partly because all the dust was tickling my throat. The batarian turned around, just in time to say hello to my fist. The woman saw her interrogator collapse to the ground and the three guys stumbling in. "Who are you?" she asked. "What are you doing?"

"Dr. Kenson?" I asked in return.

"Yes," she confirmed.

"Commander Shepard of…" I trailed off, belatedly remembering that I was not part of the Alliance, that my good name was currently mud, or worse than mud, and that I was here in a strictly unofficial, no-ties-to-the-Alliance-whatsoever capacity. Of course, I don't think she was in a position to care about that. "I'm Commander Shepard," I resumed again, activating my omni-tool and running a quick medical scan. "I'm here to bust you out of this joint."

"Commander Shepard?" Dr. Kenson repeated. "I'd heard you were alive."

One day, that joke would get old and tiresome. But not today, apparently.

"Hackett must have received my message," she continued.

"He did," I confirmed, looking over the results of my scan. Slightly dehydrated, but otherwise fine. "We can chat later. For now, we really should get moving. Can you walk?"

While we were chatting, Kasumi and Thane had been fumbling with her wrist clamps. They managed to open them right at that point, as if on cue. Dr. Kenson reached up and, with a visible effort, opened the clamp around her neck. She stumbled and almost fell before Kasumi and Thane caught her. "I'm fine," she said. "Just give me a moment."

"You have half a moment," I told her. "We really need to get going."

"Understood," Dr. Kenson replied, straightening up. Kasumi and Thane tentatively let go. To my relief, she didn't collapse to the floor. "If we can find a console, I may be able to hack security," she said. "Make us an escape path."

"Hopefully, you'll have better luck than I did," I sighed. When she gave me a questioning look, I elaborated. "Computer I was using crapped out before I could start."

"Ah. I see."

I quickly searched the room. I found a locker with some credits—though why you'd store your spare creds in an interrogation chamber is beyond me. More importantly, as far as Dr. Kenson was concerned, I managed to pry a Shuriken submachine gun from her interrogator's holster. "You know how to use this?" I asked, holding it up.

She took it from my hands, popped the thermal clip—without a HUD linked to the weapon's microframe, she had to determine how many shots she had manually—nodded in satisfaction, then loaded it back in. "I do."

"Good," I said, turning around. "Then let's get…"

My first clue that we weren't alone was the tingling that had started at the back of my neck. **(8)** My second clue was the guard standing in the doorway. We stared at each other. "Um… hi?" I tried. "How're you doing?"

The guard reached for his gun. Thane quickly drove his foot into his stomach. When he doubled over, Thane reached out with both hands, got a firm grip on either side of his head and snapped his neck. "Good job," I complimented him. To Dr. Kenson, I said "Shall we?"

Dr. Kenson raised her foot and drove it down on the interrogator, snapping _his _neck. "Lead the way."

* * *

We'd barely made it out of the interrogation room when another guard saw us. Dr. Kenson quickly snapped her arm up. A flash of sparks heralded the collapse of his shields. Guess she had an EMP function on her omni-tool too. Recognizing this particular dance after having practised it so many times, my own arm was sending off a nice merry fireball. The guard quickly went up in flames, but not before activating his comm. "Prisoner escape! I need backu—aaugh!"

"Oh dear," Thane said calmly.

"What're the odds that they didn't hear that?" Kasumi asked.

"_Attention, all guards: the ringleader's escaped. Get your asses out there and find her!"_

Aw, crap. "Poor to none," I replied. "Come on!"

I led the others back the way we came, alarms ringing in the background, only to stumble to a screeching halt when we saw the security lasers. Someone had reactivated them. "Okay, we aren't going this way," I said.

"The alternative leads us deeper into the cell block," Thane warned as we broke into a run.

"Look on the bright side," Kasumi chirped. "They won't expect us to do something _that _stupid."

"And there should be a security console that we can access," Dr. Kenson added.

We headed past the interrogation room, down the stairs, took a left—nope. Dead end. But at least there was a med-kit for me to swipe. Let's try right. Door looked good. Hostiles… not so much. Before any of them could react, I activated my cloak, whipped out my sniper rifle and stopped. Breathed out, centred my aim and gently squeezed the trigger.

Perfect headshot. Easy when the target's only ten metres away. **(9)**

As I decloaked, I noticed that Dr. Kenson had fried the shields of the remaining two guards. Kasumi and Thane quickly dropped one of them with a combination of bullets and biotics. A quick snapshot from my sniper rifle took out the other guard.

Lowering my sniper rifle, I noticed that we were in a cylindrical shaft. I could see several levels above and below us. All the levels didn't have any walls or guardrails or anything to prevent a hapless schmuck from toppling over and plummeting all the way down.

But I could worry about that later. There was an elevator up ahead. It looked like the doors were about to open. And I highly doubted that the elevator car was empty. "Everyone take cover," I warned.

Sure enough, there were a bunch of guards. They were tightly clustered together, so a twin barrage of EMPs from Kasumi and Dr. Kenson managed to disable all their shields simultaneously. Before they realized how vulnerable they were, I fired off another bolt of plasma. The fireball hit my target and quickly spread, engulfing three of them in flames. A fourth guard managed to stumble away, slapping out a couple stubborn flickers, only to take a biotic blast to the face. Within a matter of seconds, they were all dead.

Unfortunately, there were three more of them. Having been forewarned by the demise of their buddies, they were quick to spread out. I managed to tag one of them before he found cover. Didn't kill him outright since his shields absorbed most of the impact, but it definitely staggered him long enough for Kasumi to take him out. I quickly checked my HUD. Four on two. Good news: no more backup within sensor range. Bad news: the guy on the left had extra protection, if the tech armour glowing around him was any indication. "Kasumi, Dr. Kenson—please take out his shields when you have a moment."

They complied within a couple seconds. Unfortunately, he was smart enough to duck for cover before I could hit him with a fireball. "Prisoner has escaped," he shouted into his comm. "We need suppression teams to the cell block no—agh!"

Unfortunately, he got a bit distracted while calling in for help, so it was a simple matter to cloak and snipe him. Then there was only one more guard, who had already been softened up for us by a couple well-placed shots from Thane.

The coast was still clear, so we did a quick search. Believe it or not, my focus was on thermal clips and security consoles. Much to my relief, we found both fairly quickly. "The guards know we're somewhere in here," Dr. Kenson said, making a beeline for the console. "They'll be arriving any second. Keep them off me while I hack us a way out."

Figuring an Alliance Intelligence agent would know her away around a computer, I left her to it. **(10) **"You heard her," I said to Kasumi and Thane. "Let's buy the doctor a little time, shall we?"

Kasumi, Thane and I spread out and waited. It didn't take long for them a cluster of targets to show up. Once we saw where they were coming from, we moved to better firing positions. Quickly cloaking, I took out the first guard. As I decloaked, I quickly snapped off a second shot, and was pleasantly surprised when his head also exploded like a melon. Meanwhile, Thane had similar success, though a tell-tale flash of sparks told me that Kasumi may have softened his target up for him.

The last two guards split up. "You two get the guy on the right," I told them before focusing on the other guard. He was a slippery devil. Moved like greased lightning. Seeing that the sniper rifle wouldn't be able to tag him in time, I switched tactics. Getting to my feet, I moved to intercept him.

My hunch was right on the money. He showed up just where I thought he would. I raised my omni-tool and pressed the appropriate button. Sure enough, his shields blinked out. Tali's 'better-than-your-average-EMP' trick worked like a charm. I pummelled the guard into submission, making a mental note to thank her when I got back to the Normandy. A quick check of my HUD showed that Kasumi and Thane had dealt with their guard. "Dr. Kenson? How's it going?"

"I'm making progress," Dr. Kenson told us. "We need to close the door we came in through. Keep them out!"

"On it," I said, breaking into a run. Unfortunately, my HUD started lighting up like a Christmas tree long before I got to the door. Fortunately, I had another idea. I switched weapons, slowing down briefly during the changeover.

"That must be one of the guys who sprung the terrorist loose!" the lead guard said, spotting me. That was the last thing he would ever say, as a grenade hit him square in the jaw. The rest of the guards stumbled to a halt, wanting to keep their faces intact for mundane things like seeing, smelling, eating and breathing. That bought me plenty of time to hit the controls with the palm of my hand and close the door. A swift punch shattered the control panel, ensuring that no one would be getting in that way for a while.

"Shep," Kasumi called out. "More guards coming up from below."

Right. There was more than one way to hit us. I started to sprint back.

"Other side," Thane corrected me. "Hurry."

Another six guards, one with tech armour. Kasumi zapped three with her EMP, clearing the way for Thane who managed to hit two of them with a rippling biotic wave and sent them off the elevator—which was just a glorified platform. No walls, much to their dismay.

As they plummeted down, I hit their boss with my… not-EMP, sucking about half the juice from their boss's shields. That left him, two guards with shields and one guard with nothing but his hardsuit and a prayer. I raised my sniper rifle and fired.

And missed, believe it or not. Scowling, I switched to my heavy pistol. The guy was ducking and weaving like a pro, but I finally managed to take him down. Had to use up most of a thermal clip, but I got him in the end. Seeing that my omni-tool was ready, I aimed, switched targets at the last minute and took out the boss's shields. He was smart enough to duck for cover, tossing out a flashbang grenade. Fortunately, I saw it coming and had time to look somewhere else before it blinded me.

Meanwhile, Kasumi and Thane had tag-teamed another guard with a one-two EMP/biotic punch and were keeping the last guard pinned down. "Dr. Kenson?" I shouted, raising my voice above the piercing whine of the flashbang.

"Just unlocked all doors to the hangar," Dr. Kenson replied. "Still need more time!"

To my dismay, I saw the boss tap something on his wrist. As I watched, his shields regenerated. Couldn't hit him from my current position and my omni-tool wasn't ready to hit him again, so I emptied the last couple shots from my heavy pistol into the other guard. With a quick, practised motion, I ejected the spent thermal clip and slotted in a new one. "Kasumi?"

"Ready, Shep!"

Between Kasumi and I, the boss's shields didn't have a chance. Thane hit him with a dose of biotics, knocking him off balance. A couple shots from the three of us were all it took to finish the job.

Just in time too, as another four guards were coming up the elevator, all tightly packed together. That let Kasumi hit all four of them with her EMP. I followed up with a fireball, which sent them into a burning, flailing panic. One guard succumbed to the plasma burns while another accidentally stepped off the elevator and plunged down the shaft. The last two soon followed him, thanks to Thane's biotics.

"Bringing down their orbital tracking network now," Dr. Kenson called out. "I'm—hang on… watch the other side! More guards coming up on the elevator!"

She was right. Another half dozen guards. You could tell who was the boss by the strength of his shields, augmented by a set of tech armour. Pulling out my sniper rifle, I cloaked and aimed, only to lose him as some eager beaver got in my sights. I waited for him to get clear, realized that I wouldn't have time before my cloak shut down and took the shot. Not the guy I wanted, but a kill's a kill.

Kasumi and Thane would probably agree. They'd taken out two more guards while I was hemming and hawing. "There's the prisoner!" I heard one of the remaining three yell.

"Wait, I thought there was only one prisoner. There are three of them!" another yelled back.

"Who cares!" the third voice snapped. "Kill them all!"

Too late. While they were bickering around, we'd managed to take out another guard with good ol' fashioned bullets. That left two guards… wait. Three more guards were coming. I quickly cloaked and sniped one of the newcomers. Kasumi fried another guard's shields while Thane did something very messy to his face with his biotics. Three more left—including two with tech armour.

"There's an elevator that leads up to the hangar," Dr. Kenson said. "I'll bring it down to us. Almost done."

"Same here," I replied. Not wanting to make a liar of myself, I waited until my cloak recharged, activated it and fired. My target's tech armour took the brunt of it, but an EMP from Kasumi took out the rest of his shields—along with a nearby guard. Thane lunged for another piece of cover, using that seemingly daring move to get a clear line-of-sight for another biotic wave that sent them over the edge like bowling pins.

That left one more guard. He had tech armour, but we had numbers and bullets on our side. Not to mention way too many tricks up our sleeve. He didn't stand a chance.

"Finished!" Dr. Kenson cried out as the last guard collapsed. "Let's move."

We joined her at the elevator. She hit the console as soon as we got onto the platform. _"All guards, fall back to the hangar," _we heard someone order over the loudspeaker. _"Do not let the prisoner or the others escape!" _

"Guess we'll have company," I said as we started to ascend.

"It appears so," Dr. Kenson. "Oh, one last thing—the hangar doors are hard-locked. We'll have to get them open the old-fashioned way."

Story of my life. "Leave that to us," I said.

* * *

Remembering the layout of the hangar bay from my earlier glance, I was able to plan ahead. So when the first four guards ran in, we were waiting for them with open arms. Well, not really. But we did let them get up close and personal before frying their shields. Thane clipped one with his biotics, but was unable to take him out. So we had to take pot shots at each other for a while until my omni-tool recharged. Then I gave a new set of orders.

Kasumi cloaked and snuck ahead. The guards didn't notice, of course. So they were well and truly shocked when she decloaked in their midst and took out one of their own with a devastating and sizzling blow from her omni-tool. The three guards scrambled to get away, find new firing positions or simply get some distance so they could line up a shot, which exposed them to a lethal barrage of plasma and biotics.

We dealt with the next batch in pretty much the same way, though I used my cloak and sniper rifle a bit more. Just to mix things up a little. They wanted to try new things too, considering they lobbed a few flashbang grenades our way. Though all that did was delay the inevitable.

The third wave went down even faster. Practise makes perfect, after all.

Then we waited. Seemed reasonable to assume that another wave of guards would crash the party. But no one came. After a while, I started to search around while the others covered my back. Didn't find any loot, unfortunately, but I did find one of the hard-locks Dr. Kenson had mentioned during the elevator ride. Now I could have shot it, but that would be a waste of ammo.

So I hit it with my fist instead. Very satisfying. And surprising—I sure was glad I was wearing my hardsuit when the lock exploded in my face. **(11)**

Once my shields recovered and Kasumi's sarcastic compliments subsided, I continued my search. We were halfway across the hangar bay when the back of my neck began to tingle. I picked up another five contacts a second later. They'd been lying in wait behind the shuttle, next to the second hard-lock. Smart move, I had to admit. They knew we would have to go that specific location if we wanted to get out.

Of course, it didn't take long before the tables turned in our favour. I dropped one with my sniper rifle, his brains splattering against the wall—and guard—behind him. A mixture of EMPs, plasma and biotics took out another guard—not the one wiping brain goop from his visor, though. Kasumi and Thane kept the remaining three pinned down while Dr. Kenson and I moved to a better angle. A quick rinse-and-repeat brought their numbers down to one. Seeing how the lucky bastard had tech armour, I chose to wait until we were good and ready.

When the time came, Kasumi and Dr. Kenson blew out his shields while I melted part of his hardsuit with another fireball. Just to mix things up, I thought I'd rush him and take him out with a good ol' round of fisticuffs. Well, I guess he was more cultured and civilized than I was, because he steadfastly refused to play, ducking and dodging out of my way. So I gave in to the inevitable and set him on fire again.

While he writhed and burned to a crispy critter, I dealt with the last hard-lock. Thane stood guard while Kasumi and Dr. Kenson entered the shuttle and started prepping her for takeoff. They had just finished the pre-flight checks when Thane and I came aboard—and just in time, too. The hatch had only been closed for a couple seconds when another trio of guards came in.

We watched as they looked around. There was a bit of talking and pointing and shrugging. Then they found some cover. Which would have been a good idea if they had been facing the right way.

"What in the name of... they must not realize we're in the shuttle," Dr. Kenson breathed.

"Maybe they thought they beat us to the hangar bay," Kasumi suggested.

"It is curious that they did not think to do a sensor sweep," Thane observed.

"Too bad," I grinned, settling down at the controls. "They're in for a very rude surprise."

And so, after a long bout of tedious boredom and ridiculous detours, followed by a frantic bout of shouting and shooting, we broke out of the prison in a stolen shuttle, leaving behind one piss-poor prison and a trail of corpses.

Including the hapless trio in the hangar bay. First time I ever lit someone up with thruster exhaust.

Hee, hee.

* * *

_(1): Shepard neglected to mention that he provided a distraction, namely by setting a cargo container on fire. No doubt he had enough accusations of being a pyromaniac. _

_(2): Yunaca, based on Aratoht's rotation, the location of the prison and the timestamp on Shepard's chronometer._

_(3): A human gesture where two fingers—typically the index and middle fingers—are crossed, one over the other. Historically, it was used by religious believers to identify each other during times of persecution. It has since become a method to implore a deity for protection, wish for good luck or pardon the telling of a white lie. In this case, I believe Shepard was referring to the second method._

_(4): The mental image that comes to mind is surprisingly accurate._

_(5): True, though I highly doubt that would be considered common ground for any kind of diplomacy or peace initiative. _

_(6): Kasumi and Thane later admitted that there was, in fact, a stack of crates that were used to safely descend to the ground, though he did need to use the vehicle lift to access the lower level and continue on his way. Shepard neglected to mention that, as well as the fact that he used the crane and vehicle lift to clear a path so he could acquire some iridium, schematics, med-kits and credits. _

_(7): It must have been harrowing, navigating such a confusing labyrinth. As for Shepard's mental state, I choose not to comment at this time. _

_(8): Shepard frequently described this phenomenon as a warning of imminent danger. I can assure readers that this is simply a manifestation of his finely honed combat instincts rather than a biological or physiological quirk._

_(9): As a trained long-distance sniper, Shepard couldn't help but notice that most of his targets tended to be fairly close to him, though the results were the same._

_(10): While neither Admiral Hackett nor Dr. Kenson told Shepard of her affiliations, it was a simple deduction to make._

_(11): Ever since the adoption of thermal clips, Shepard went to extraordinary and, at times, comical lengths to conserve ammunition. _


	3. Two Days and Counting

**Chapter 3: Two Days and Counting**

Once we broke through Aratoht's atmosphere, I entered a course for the mass relay. "That should do it," I said. "Next stop: mass relay to Alliance space."

I joined Dr. Kenson, Kasumi and Thane. "We should be well out of range before they get their security measures unscrambled," I reassured her. "And I added a couple twists and turns to throw off any pursuers."

"Good," Dr. Kenson sighed. "I'd expect some attempt at pursuit at least. Batarians don't take kindly to humans who enter their territory. They _really _object to humans who enter their territory and plan to destroy their mass relays."

Kasumi, Thane and I exchanged looks. All those conversations and security logs we'd overheard at the prison suddenly made a lot more sense. "So the charges against you are true," I stated.

"Well, yes," Dr. Kenson admitted. "To be fair, that's only half the story."

"And the other half is…" I prompted.

"My team was here investigating rumours of Reaper technology out in the fringes of this system," she began.

"Right," I said. "Admiral Hackett said you found something."

"We did," Dr. Kenson nodded. "Proof that the Reapers will be arriving in this system."

"Why here?" Thane asked. "Why the Bahak system?"

"Because of its mass relay," Dr. Kenson replied. "They want to use it to travel throughout the galaxy."

"I'm gonna repeat his question," Kasumi frowned, jerking a thumb towards Thane. "Why here? The network's pretty much open to anyone. They could access it through any relay."

Dr. Kenson shook her head. "With this relay, they don't have to." Seeing the looks of confusion on our faces, she took a breath and started to explain. "This actually began with some research I'd conducted on mass relays. Studying them is extremely difficult. But by analyzing and comparing the composition of dust trapped near the relays with dust found elsewhere in the same system, I was able to determine that only a handful of mass relays can be dated at 50 000 years old. Give or take a couple centuries, of course."

Translation: Liara was right. I was right. I wouldn't go so far to say 'I told you so' except… well… let me think… _I did tell you so! Multiple times!_ **(1)** "In other words, you found proof that the Protheans couldn't have constructed the mass relay network we enjoy today."

"Precisely. The majority of mass relays are far, far older. And the one in this system, according to my analysis and calculations, is the oldest by far."

"Okay," I scratched my head. "Still not seeing why it's so special. So it's the oldest. So what?"

"I'm getting there," Dr. Kenson reassured me. "At first glance, you're right: it's no different than any other secondary relay. **(2)** But the Alpha Relay, as we came to call it, has a unique feature: if certain controls are adjusted, it receives a massive and unprecedented jolt of dark energy. This power boost allows it to connect to sixteen other relays throughout the known galaxy. Directly, without the need to pass through other relays along the way. If my projections are correct, it could even reach the Citadel itself."

Holy. Crap. A device that could combine the advantages of both kinds of relays with none of the disadvantages. The strategic and tactical ramifications were… well… mind-blowing, to say the least. Invasions. Preemptive strikes. State-sponsored terrorist attacks. The list went on and on. "Okay," I managed at last. "That's… different, all right. If the other races found out, they'd freak."

"To say the least," Dr. Kenson agreed. "Which is probably why the Hegemony's taken such pains to hide its true capabilities. They may be paranoid, but they're not stupid."

Fair enough, I had to concede. If the Alliance—or any other race, for that matter—had something that powerful in their backyard, something that could redefine galactic warfare, politics, economics and a whole lot more to such a dramatic extent, they'd do the same thing. Deny, hush up and downplay.

I forced myself to stop going in circles imagining the possible ramifications and focus on the present. "So there's more to this relay than meets the eye. That's why the Reapers want to use it. Makes sense, since their usual tactic isn't an option. **(3)** Was that when you came up with the idea to blow it up?"

"We didn't plan on strapping explosives to it and calling it a day, but yes," Dr. Kenson said. "Destroying the Alpha Relay would slow the Reapers' invasion to a crawl. Even at FTL speeds, it'd be months or even years before they got to the next relay.

"We came up with what we just called 'The Project.' Yes, the name's rather lacking in originality and grandeur."

I got the feeling that that point had come up once or twice before. Call it a hunch.

"The purpose of the Project was quite simple: to launch a nearby asteroid into the relay and destroy it before the Reapers could arrive."

Okay. Unimaginative title, very ambitious plan.

"Of course, the resulting explosion would probably wipe out the entire system."

Um... what? "Hold on," I protested. "Why do you think destroying the mass relay would wipe out the entire system?"

"What happens when a starship's drive core explodes?" Dr. Kenson asked in return.

"Boom."

"Succinct, but correct," Dr. Kenson nodded. "As you know, drive cores are essentially mass-effect engines. Now consider that mass _relays _are the largest and most powerful mass-effect engines in the known galaxy. The amount of energy released from a relay's destruction would be proportionately more powerful. At the very least, it would resemble a supernova."

"There are many innocents who would be sacrificed as a result of your Project," Thane pointed out.

"You're right," Dr. Kenson acknowledged. "This is a remote system, but over three hundred thousand batarians live on the colony where they held us. **(4)** The explosion would undoubtedly kill them all."

"And you're okay with that?" Kasumi demanded in a hushed voice.

"I wouldn't say 'okay,' but sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good."

I hoped Dr. Kenson was wrong. Because if she was right, and the Reapers really were about to show up, then we were in big trouble. Scratch that—we were screwed. Unless a whole whack load of progress had been made underneath all that public denial, we weren't ready. Any delay would be sorely welcome.

But was it worth the cost of over three hundred thousand lives? That was a question I really didn't want to answer. "How feasible is this Project?" I asked, scrambling for safer territory. "I've always heard that mass relays were indestructible."

"I've heard that too," Dr. Kenson said. "But that's mostly conventional wisdom speaking, without any evidence or serious theoretical study to back it up. To be honest, I think it primarily comes from the fact that nobody's willing to find out what happens when one is destroyed."

For good reason. Destroying even one mass relay meant cutting that entire region off from the rest of the network and, by extension, the rest of the known galaxy. Only the craziest and nihilistic nut jobs would ever dream of doing something like that.

"And... well... we planned to slam a small planetoid into the thing at very high speed. By our calculations, that's more than enough."

"That's why you were smuggling all those components from Omega," I realized.

"They're readily available in Omega's salvage yards," Dr. Kenson confirmed. "All you need is a set of engines to generate the right amount of thrust, a black-market eezo core to lighten the overall mass and provide power, and a good VI for guidance and navigation. After that, you can pretty much just point and shoot."

"How much progress had you made?" I asked. "Is the Project still operational?"

"I... I imagine it is," Dr. Kenson shrugged uncertainly. "We were one button-press away from launch when the batarians arrested me. Apparently, they found the unauthorized smuggling of thrusters, guidance equipment and eezo cores to be a tad suspicious."

Go figure.

"A few days ago, I took a few of the men on a scouting trip, and the batarians pounced on us. They never found our actual base."

"Okay," I said. "So the Reapers are coming and you have a plan to stop them. But I still don't see how you learned about this invasion in the first place. You said you found a Reaper artifact in the system."

"Yes, amongst the asteroids. Near the relay itself," Dr. Kenson replied. "We call it Object Rho."

Well, at least it was more imaginative than 'the Project.'

"When we get back to Arcturus Station, I'll explain everything and provide copies of all our notes on the artifact," she promised.

"Hang on," I said, raising my hands to slow things down. "This 'Object Rho'... what was it doing out in an asteroid field in the first place?"

"We don't know," Dr. Kenson admitted. "We don't even know what it was intended for. But even a Reaper that's been dead for thousands of years contains power. Their artifacts are worthy of study, regardless of their purpose."

True, but this wasn't an academic debate. We were talking about a dangerous artifact from a race that habitually committed brainwashing and mass genocide. Whether it was worthy of study or not was kind of beside the point. And she still hadn't answered my question. "How exactly does a Reaper artifact give you proof of an impending invasion?" I demanded. "What kind of proof justifies the destruction of a mass relay, its system and all its inhabitants?"

"It showed me visions of the Reapers' arrival... much like your Prothean beacon, I imagine. The Reapers are coming, Commander. That much I know for certain."

It showed her... hooboy. "The difference is that Protheans aren't known for indoctrinating random sapients," I reminded her. "If you've been working near a Reaper artifact, how have you avoided indoctrination?"

"We've been very careful. We know what we're dealing with. You're not speaking to a child, Shepard. I saw what Sovereign did at the Citadel. Trust me—I know what's at stake."

So did I. I'd also spent the better part of a year working with people who were sure they were very careful and knew what they were dealing with, what Sovereign did and what was at stake. None of them were children. And all of those people created messes and disasters that I had to clean up. "The stakes are too high," I said bluntly. "If you're willing to wipe out a whole system and over three hundred thousand lives, we don't have time to go to Arcturus Station and talk it over. I want to see your proof. Now."

"I guess I can't argue with that," Dr. Kenson sighed. "Give me a moment."

She got up and walked over to one of the shuttle's computers and accessed the comm panel. While her back was turn, I exchanged another look with Kasumi and Thane. Their eyes told me that they were fully aware of the ramifications of what we'd just learned... and how dicey this situation was.

"Kenson to Project Base."

...

"Kenson to Project Base. Do you copy?"

"_We need to do an ID check," _we heard over the comm. _"Challenge: Sparrow."_

"Response: Everest," Dr. Kenson replied immediately.

"_Good to hear your voice, Doctor," _the voice said. _"You coming home?"_

"Affirmative," Dr. Kenson said. "And I've got Commander Shepard with me."

"_Shepard? _The _Commander Shepard? Really?"_

I do get that a lot, don't I?

"Really. Tidy up the lab. The commander needs to confirm the artifact."

"_Right. We'll get everything set up for your arrival. Project Base out." _

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my teammates tense up ever so slightly. No doubt the idea of some anonymous faceless guy preparing for our arrival didn't set well with them. Dr. Kenson sat back down. "All set. Just sit back and relax. We'll be there in no time."

Somehow, I didn't think we'd be relaxing any time soon. A quick glance at Kasumi and Thane confirmed that. Well, they say misery loves company…

* * *

As it turned out, Dr. Kenson's ETA wasn't an empty boast. We arrived at the asteroid in a little under an hour.

The flight path Dr. Kenson had originally programmed was nowhere near the asteroid, for obvious reasons. No sense leading some irritated prison guards straight to your secret lair, after all. Once we entered the asteroid belt, she disengaged the autopilot and entered a new set of coordinates. A few minutes later, we'd arrived.

My first impression was that Dr. Kenson and her team had picked the right asteroid to set up shop. The thing was _huge_. It was definitely larger than a mass relay, and those things are, like, fifteen kilometres long! The base itself fit nicely into the lee of a cliff face, one of the many pockmarks that studded the giant rock. As we entered our final approach, a set of doors opened like a thresher maw opening its jaws. Dr. Kenson gently lowered us into the hangar bay. I tried to stop thinking of giant, toothy fauna at that point.

Dr. Kenson was the first out of the shuttle. She turned to face us as we stepped out. "Here we are," she said. "Welcome to Project Base."

"Uh huh," I said absently, my attention focused on a countdown timer. Hard to miss, since it was ticking down over the entrance to the hangar bay in giant numbers. "What's that?"

"That's our countdown to Arrival," Dr. Kenson replied. "When that gets to zero... the Reapers will have come."

I took another look. And gulped. If this was correct...

"Just over two days and counting," she added. "Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?"

Kasumi, Thane and I exchanged looks. Any perspective we got was not a happy one. "You could say that," I allowed. "How do you know that's an accurate countdown? What if it's off?"

"It's accurate," Dr. Kenson said firmly. "The artifact's been giving off definite intervals since we found it. Those intervals have been decreasing at a steady rate. We believe the artifact is reacting to the Reapers' proximity. In just over two days, the pulses will become constant and the Reapers will be here."

Two days, three hours, twenty-four minutes and fifty-three seconds, to be exact. If the Reapers could be knocking on Earth's door that soon, then it was a damn good thing we didn't stop by Arcturus to debate the whole thing in committee. "Then there's no time to waste," I replied.

"Right," Dr. Kenson nodded. "That door exits the hangar. The artifact—and our proof—is in our central lab area. You can meet me there when you're ready."

"Okay," I nodded. I waited until she was out of earshot before turning to Kasumi and Thane. "I'm gonna do a quick walkaround. While I do that, can you take care of something?"

"Sure thing."

"Of course."

Once I'd given them their assignments, I indulged my usual habit of wandering around and taking things that didn't belong to me. Got some more credits, some palladium and some power cells. The latter was unusually welcome, considering this was the first time in a couple months that I'd used my heavy weapon at all and had to restock its ammo.

I rejoined Kasumi and Thane outside the shuttle. "Done?"

"Done," they said in unison.

Dr. Kenson was waiting for us. "This way, please." She took us down the corridor, past a couple people and to the left. Glancing behind me, I saw that all the other doors were locked—believe me, I tried. They were all restricted to authorized personnel only. Maybe someone had told them of my habit of redistributing wealth.

The only door that was open was the one marked 'Lab Access.' We walked through it and into some kind of meeting area, with more men and women going about their business. The whole place had giant windows, giving us a really nice view of the asteroid's terrain. I could even see Bahak's sun as a backdrop, completing the picturesque view. "So is there anything we need to do to get the Project back up and running?" I asked her.

"Everything's still in place," Dr. Kenson reassured me. "Not that that surprises me. Like I said earlier, we'd pretty much finished when the batarians caught me. By that point, it was never really a question of 'could we,' but 'should we'."

"What alternative do we have?" I wanted to know, automatically scooping up some more palladium as we walked along.

"The Reapers will reach this system, no matter what happens," Dr. Kenson replied. "But the Alpha Relay is their shortcut to the rest of the galaxy. If you want to keep the Reapers at bay and buy us all some more time, this relay _must _be destroyed."

That was it, really. I'd been thinking about it on the way over to the base and I kept coming to the same conclusions. The math was brutal, but undeniable: to save trillions of lives throughout the galaxy, we might have to sacrifice thousands of lives here. Though some part of me was still frantically hoping that she was off her rocker and none of this was actually gonna happen. **(5)**

I thought that over some more as we got into an elevator and descended to one of the lower levels. We got out and walked down a hallway. More giant windows. They might be working in hostile territory, but the view was great—if you didn't mind seeing a lot of rock.

There were several more people here. I found myself wondering just how big this team was. It was good to have ample manpower, but deep-cover operations usually didn't have this many people. Especially in hostile territory, since that would dramatically increase the chances of getting caught—like Dr. Kenson had—and blowing the whole operation.

We stopped by a locked door. I guess this one we'd be authorized to enter. "Once we've verified the proof, we have to get the Project running again," I told her. "It's probably the only chance we have."

"One sec," she said, activating her omni-tool. "Let me get the door. She punched in a code. The door obligingly turned green and opened…

…

…oh shit.

A large sculpture stood before us. Kinda hard to miss, considering it took up most of the room. It reminded me of a partly-opened flower without the stem and leaves, if there was a flower whose petals were composed of dark blue-grey segmented plates, with cold blue-white light shining between each petal plate and writhing in a ball of lightning deep within its centre. And did I mention how big it was? We're talking several metres in height, easy.

Dr. Kenson walked into the room and turned around. "Commander Shepard," she said, waving her hand with a certain dramatic theatricality, "I give you Object Rho."

Against my better judgement, I took a few steps forward. Thane and Kasumi, having better sense, stayed outside the lab. I couldn't really spend more time pondering that, though, considering the way the back of my neck was tingling. To top it off, I felt an icy cold hand wrap its fingers around my stomach. "You have the Reaper artifact just sitting here? Out in the open?" I whispered.

"When we found it, it showed me a vision of the Reapers' arrival," Dr. Kenson repeated, staring at the Reaper artifact.

Dr. Kenson and her people had set up shop _right on top_ of the Reaper artifact. It was smack dab in the _middle_ of the base—a relatively small base—this whole time. Every single member of the team had been spending all this time in very, very close proximity to a Reaper artifact. My neck was tingling so hard it felt like a million little feet were dancing on my skin, while the icy fist was now squeezing my stomach. Hard. "Kenson," I said with a sense of rapidly growing horror, "this is _not good_."

"Give it a moment, Shepard," Dr. Kenson assured me. "It'll give you the proof you need.

Part of me wanted to step forward and get a little closer. Part of me wanted to do an about-face and run screaming from the lab. I found myself caught in a moment of indecision. Frozen. Paralyzed. The blue energy of the Reaper artifact suddenly brightened…

…the light turned yellow, burning like a sun…

…those eyes… burning yellow too…

…movement of dark metal, almost invisible against the void…

…the cold blue light of the mass relay, eclipsed by a giant mass… then three… then dozens… then hundreds…

…another flash of blue light…

…I dimly remember returning to the lab, Object Rho glowing before me. **(6)** I felt a falling sensation, then a twin feeling of pain as I dropped to my knees. I fell to my hands, feeling really dizzy. Everything was so blurred.

My vision started to clear and the nausea subsided. I turned my head, just in time to see a suddenly grim Dr. Kenson, pointing a Shuriken my way. "I can't let you start the Project, Shepard," she said. "I can't let you stop the Arrival."

"Shep!" Kasumi cried out.

Dr. Kenson glanced towards her. Just for a second, but that was enough for me to lunge upwards, bat the pistol away from me, squeeze and pull. I felt a crumpling sensation as her wrist bones shattered, just before she cried out in pain. Before I could do anything—apologize, take her as a hostage, something—I felt bullets bouncing off my shields. Looking around, I saw ten or twelve men and women coming in from various points of entry. All armed. Already, they were enough of them that I'd have a tough time weaving through them. And that was without all the guns.

Kasumi and Thane were on the other side of the mob. That was the only good point of the clusterfuck that this situation had devolved into. "You have your orders!" I called out. "Go! I'll buy you some time!"

"Take him down!" Dr. Kenson snarled, clutching her injured arm as she limped from the lab.

As I scrambled for cover, I automatically noted a couple things. First, I was cut off from the only entrance or exit to the lab. Second, the hostiles had split into two groups—one of which was moving to apprehend Kasumi and Thane. Third, Kasumi and Thane were still in the lab. _"MOVE!" _I yelled.

That did it. They bolted, just as we discussed.

I should explain.

Ever since Dr. Kenson had explained what the Project was all about, I'd been a little worried. When she told me that she got it from a vision imparted to her by a Reaper artifact, well, to say I was really worried would be an understatement. So I told Kasumi and Thane to prep the shuttle we'd stolen from Aratoht for a quick getaway. If the worst came to pass—and I think this qualified—then we had to get out of here, contact the Normandy, bring them up to speed, and try to see if we could get as many inhabitants out of here before the relay blew up. Because the relay definitely had to go. If I was uncertain about the truth of the Reapers' arrival before, I was dead certain now.

Kasumi and Thane were with me up to that point. They were a little more hesitant about the part where we had to escape and warn the Normandy even if it meant leaving someone behind. Goes against the grain, I know. But the mission had to take priority. The fate of the galaxy was literally at stake.

Half the hostiles followed in hot pursuit. That left five hostiles for me. Hopefully I could deal with them and join Kasumi and Thane. If not...

...

...well, I guess I'd have to buy them as much time as I could.

* * *

First things first—I had to find some better cover. I was currently ducking behind one of the computer consoles stationed around the Reaper artifact—I guess I should start calling it Object Rho, huh? **(7)** Not only was it way too exposed, I didn't like the idea of cozying up to the damn thing any longer than I had to.

OK. Two people on the other side of Object Rho, coming around to my left. Three on my right. Best bet was to bunker down in a corner, whittle down the odds until they were more in my favour, then make a break for it. One of the guards on the right had a line of sight on me, or he would in a couple seconds. Before he could line up a clear shot, I cloaked, raised my sniper rifle, and blew his brains out.

All right. I couldn't stay here any longer. I looked around. Pillar? Too exposed. That computer console? Closer to the door, but I'd get mowed down trying to get to it, even under cloak. That set of couches? It would take me away from the door, but it was a lot more defensible. All right. Choice number three it was. Now how could I get to it?

A bright flash of light and a whining noise interrupted my train of thought. Someone was trying to blind and deafen me. Unfortunately for them, my sensors worked just fine. I might not be able to acquire a clean shot, but my HUD could tell me where to zap their shields. So that's what I did, followed by a bolt of plasma.

That didn't quite kill the guy, but it did make him throw another flashbang grenade to protect himself. The flash and whine made it harder for me to kill them, but it also made it harder for them to kill me. Using it as a distraction, I made a break for the sofas, sliding behind cover just in the nick of time.

Switching to my pistol, I popped up and scored a headshot on the guy I'd wounded earlier, putting him out of his misery. Then I switched back to my sniper rifle, cloaked and took out another guard.

"_Don't make this difficult, Shepard!" _Dr. Kenson said over a hidden loudspeaker. Before I could respond, someone else spoke. Or something.

"_Do not resist. Give yourself over and be spared."_

That... came from Object Rho. What's more, it sounded eerily like Harbinger. As if things couldn't get any creepier. Definitely time to get out of here.

Or not, I realized, as another trio of guards came in. One of them had a big tank on his back. Probably a gas tank hooked up to a flamethrower. Someone just jumped to the top of the list. I drained his shields, ignoring all the hits that my own shields were taking, then fired a ball of plasma as soon as I could. The resulting explosion was gratifying, but it would've been better if it had taken out a couple more guards. Oh well.

I switched to my submachine gun and took out another guard's shields. Then I fired a few more shots before following it up with a fireball. "Damn it," I heard someone curse. "Shepard won't go down."

"Yeah, we need more reinforcements!"

Keep talking. The more you yak away, the more time you give my cloak to recharge—there we go. I activated it again and stood up, switching to my sniper rifle. One shot, one kill. And another thermal clip spent. I really hoped this wouldn't take too long, or I was gonna run out of ammo.

Putting away my sniper rifle, I grabbed my submachine gun and emptied the rest of the clip, taking out the shields of another two guards. They were smart enough to duck for cover before I could do anything else, so I used my omni-tool to disable the last guard's shields.

"_We don't want to hurt you, Commander," _Dr. Kenson pleaded. _"Lay down your weapons."_

"_Your galaxy is in sight," _the deep Harbinger-like voice uttered from Object Rho. _"Your final days are at hand."_

OK, whoever or whatever was using Object Rho as a comm device really had to compare notes with Dr. Kenson, because their lines kept contradicting each other.

Of course, maybe I could point that out after I dealt with the three—no, five guards now. Couple latecomers to the party. And one of them had some really strong shields, according to the readings I was getting. Still holding onto my submachine gun, I fired half a clip at him before zapping the rest of his shields.

Unfortunately, I could only fire a couple more shots before I had to duck back down. My own shields were down to a sliver of strength. Even worse, another guard was trying to sneak up on my right. And he was packing a flamethrower. My cloak was almost ready again, so I holstered my submachine gun and grabbed my sniper rifle.

This time, when I activated my cloak, I actually got up, ran up a couple stairs to a dormant bank of computer consoles. When I fired, not only was I able to take out the guy trying to barbeque me, I also confused the other guards. While they were trying to reacquire me, I had time to shoot another guard. No cloak to help out this time, but my Widow still had enough power to punch through his shields, his helmet and his skull.

"We can't keep this up much longer!" I heard someone warn over the gunfire.

"We'll keep it up as long as we have to," another guard—probably the one who had a good shield package, since the bosses tended to keep them for themselves—retorted. "Keep firing!"

In response, I decided to put a sniper round in his head as soon as my cloak was ready. Unfortunately, his shields had regenerated by that point and took most of the damage. He still stumbled back, though, so at least that was something.

Grabbing my heavy pistol, I leaned out and fired at another guard. I methodically took out his shields, ignoring all the bullets bouncing off my own, then plugged away at his big, fat head. Thankfully, he went down just before I burned through the clip.

"_This will only get worse for you, Shepard." _Dr. Kenson warned.

"_The end of your species will come."_

Great. When I said the Reapers and Dr. Kenson should start singing the same song, I didn't mean _that _song. Guess I should be more specific, huh?

I fried another guard's shields, then used up the last couple shots from my heavy pistol. He took cover before I do anything else, so I ducked back down and reloaded in safety. Then I continued dishing out a mix of shield-draining, plasma firing and general shooting.

Things were going reasonably well. Sure the hostiles kept replenishing their numbers and I wasn't getting fresh supplies of thermal clips, but I was holding my own. At least, that's what I thought.

Then came a new wrinkle: "That's it! I've had enough," the boss snapped. "Activate the heavy mech!"

Aw, crap. That wasn't good. I had to move. Fast.

In my haste, my next shot missed entirely. So I switched back to my sniper rifle, cloaked, and took out another guard. He didn't have any shields, so it was a little over the top, but a kill's a kill.

"_Patience," _Dr. Kenson said soothingly. That made it even creepier, to be honest. _"It's only a matter of time."_

"_Struggle, if you wish," _I heard Harbinger/Rho say in its deep, inhuman voice. _"Your mind will be mine."_

And the level of creepy just kept rising.

We exchanged weapons fire for another minute or so. I kept everyone at bay. Zapped a few more shields. Made a couple guards do the oh-geez-I'm-on-fire-and-not-in-a-good-way dance. Even scored a few headshots and kill-shots.

Then the YMIR came.

My sensors picked it up first. There aren't many things that have heavy shielding _and _armour plating. Next, I felt and heard the thumps of its feet stomping on the floor. So when it came through the door, I was already draining a chunk of its shields with my omni-tool and another chunk with my submachine gun.

I ducked down as the YMIR—and the other guards—opened fire. As the bullets whistled overhead and thunked into the console I was hiding behind, I checked my HUD again. If they were smart, they'd either have the guards advance and try to flank me while the YMIR provided cover fire or stay back and force me to keep my head down while the YMIR advanced.

Based on what my HUD was telling me, they'd settled on the latter. Guess they didn't want to get up close and personal after the body count I'd racked up so far. Worked for me. The YMIR was more than enough trouble. For now, anyway.

The mass accelerator cannons of YMIR heavy mechs have a distinctive sound, which made its sudden absence very telling. That usually meant it was planning to launch a rocket. It gave me a brief window of opportunity between the time where it was spitting out bullets and the time where it was trying to blow me to kingdom come. I used that opportunity to take down its shields.

Ducking back down just in time, I quickly reviewed my options. How many thermal clips I had left in each of my weapons, how many shots I had in my grenade launcher, how many tricks I had in my omni-tool...

...hmm. Tricks in my omni-tool.

Activating my cloak, I pulled out my sniper rifle, aimed and shot it in the head. Left a nice big dent in one of the armour plates covering its head. That was it, though. Didn't destroy it. Certainly didn't discourage it from stomping towards me.

I waited until my cloak was recharged, then another round at its head again. Same spot. The armour plate buckled. The YMIR took another booming step forward. The armour plate was jarred loose...

...and fell off.

Perfect. Now for the fun part. I waited until there was a pause—relatively speaking—in the gunfire, then I popped up again and aimed my omni-tool. I waited long enough to confirm the program had been sent before ducking back down.

Then I sat back and smiled as the newly hacked YMIR mech turned around and started spewing high-velocity death at the guards.

Of course, the hack only lasted a short time before the YMIR's security protocols kicked it out. This meant that once it turned back towards me, I had to hack it again. And again. And again. And again. **(8)**

By the time the YMIR finally collapsed and exploded, there were only two guards left. Two heavily injured guards. I noticed there were no new reinforcements. Guess they thought the heavy mech would be enough.

Whatever. I wasn't complaining. I cloaked and sniped one of the remaining guards. Then I vaulted over the console and half-ran-half-crouched down the stairs. Time to head for the exit before any more reinforcements arrived. My attempt at running like a monkey turned into a flat out dive as bullets flew over my head. I checked my HUD. Still just the one guard. But my dive had taken me out of his line of sight. Plus it put me within spitting distance of a couple thermal clips.

I wound up crawling on hands and knees towards another computer console, keeping Object Rho between me and the guard. Managed to grab some more thermal clips along the way. Before I knew it, I was more or less fully stocked again.

"_Have faith in the artifact," _Dr. Kenson said. _"It'll be over soon."_

To be honest, I wasn't sure whether she was talking to me or the guard. And, quite frankly, I didn't care. All that mattered was that, according to the HUD, the only people within sensor range—which included this room and immediately around it—was the guard and yours truly. Which meant I still had a chance of getting out of here. I activated my cloak, feeling the welcoming tingle sweep over me as I disappeared from sight. Raising my sniper rifle, I centred my aim on the guard... breathed out... and squeezed.

Boom. I paused just long enough to see the last guard begin to fall before bolting for the door, not even bothering to reload.

As I ran, the deep voice spoke once more, its deep ominous bass echoing from Object Rho: _"You shall be the first to witness our Arrival."_

I could have sworn I saw a field of energy expand from Object Rho at that point. My instincts told me to run like hell. My curiosity told me to look back. I tried to do both.

Was it just me, or was Object Rho glowing a lot more? I decided to save that for another time and run even harder. Freedom was almost within my grasp...

...the back of my neck tingled again...

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wave of energy sweep out from Object Rho. I felt the wave of energy hit me, penetrating into every muscle and bone and cell. My entire body seemed to erupt in unbelievable, agonizing pain...

... my vision turned red and hazy...

I must've blacked out, because the next thing I knew, I was staring at something white and metal and curved. Looked like something electronic, but the angle was all wrong. Was I on the floor?

Feet. Definitely feet. Couldn't hear them, though. It looked like they were walking towards me.

I tried to follow them. It took every ounce of strength and effort just to move my head. Why did I feel so weak? So tired?

The feet stopped. I tried to look up, but I seemed to be falling down. How could that be? Wasn't I already on the floor?

No, I was mistaken. The feet, no, the person who I'd seen walking towards me was kneeling. Was it Dr. Kenson? I couldn't tell. Everything was so blurry. And the lights were too bright, blinding me with their...

...no. No, no, no. It was the eyes again. Staring at me. Glowing. Blazing in all its golden, unholy glory.

More figures loomed behind. Their eyes were glowing too, but not as bright. I had the sense something was covering them. Helmets maybe. But I could still see the eyes...

"Take him to the med bay and patch him up."

No. No, I didn't need the med bay. Didn't need patching up. I just needed to get up...

...and go...

...

"We want Shepard alive."

That sounded bad. Had to get away.

...

Had to...

...to get...

...

* * *

_(1): A frustration that I wholeheartedly share with Shepard. _

_(2): Mass relays are divided into two categories. Primary relays can transport objects over thousands of light years, but only to a single 'partner' relay. Secondary relays could connect to any other relay, but only within a radius of a couple hundred light years._

_(3): For countless cycles, the Reapers had invaded the known galaxy via the Citadel, which was actually a dormant mass relay that extended out into dark space. As one of their last acts of defiance, the Protheans sabotaged the Reapers' access to the Citadel, forcing them to use more indirect methods. For further details, please consult Admiral Anderson's compilation of logs. _

_(4): While the Hegemony went to great lengths to keep any information from leaking out, they did conduct extensive surveys. The last census pegged the population of Aratoht at an estimated 90 000 free beings and 215 000 'others'._

_(5): A human saying that suggests one is crazy or insane. _

_(6): Kasumi and Thane later told Shepard that he was bathed in a field of blue light reminiscent to the glow observed when a biotic is manifesting dark energy. They also told him that they never experienced any of the sensations or visions that he was subjected to. _

_(7): Shepard did take a while before he referred to the Reaper artifact by the designation Dr. Kenson had given it. When asked, he couldn't explain why. He could only say that continuing to talk about it in generalities would give it and, by extension, the Reapers, too much power over him._

_(8): For readers who are new or don't remember, Shepard acquired this hacking program from Tali. She was forced to give him a basic program because his omni-tool had limited storage capacity. Probably because of all the music files he had._


	4. Miranda Versus the Morning Rounds

_Editorial Note: As insightful as Shepard's personal logs are, there is no denying the fact that they can only cover events from his point of view. While his thoroughness and attention to detail is usually enough to offset that disadvantage, I felt that an additional voice would be beneficial. It is with this in mind that I present the personal thoughts of Miranda Lawson, as presented in a log that she consented to send to me. Given her usual penchant for privacy, I am grateful for her generosity._

* * *

**Chapter 4: Miranda Versus the Morning Rounds **

At 0430, I woke up.

It felt strange to have Shepard gone.

Normally, I knew where he was. If he was recruiting someone to the cause, investigating some mystery or answering a distress call, I was usually with him. Entering some base, climbing up and over some incline, groping through a poisonous fog. Inevitably stumbling into more than one combat situation, automatically noting bullet trajectories and tracing them back to their sources. Determining the most effective way to contribute to a successful conclusion, whether it be disabling someone's shields or applying the right amount of biotic energy at the right time.

And, naturally, he'd spend the moments of breathing room in between each encounter to search for thermal clips, credits, packets of mineral resources or schematics for upgrades.

Or maybe someone had a problem and was looking for a sympathetic ear. A shoulder to cry on. A helping hand. Well, Shepard would be the first to volunteer his services. Mostly trivial things, requiring a simple conversation. Sometimes it required a more… aggressive approach. But I would usually be there to watch him. To witness the Shepard magic, as some of the other squad mates put it. **(1)**

If we didn't have an assignment, mission or pressing matter to attend to, he was on the Normandy. Walking around on what he called his 'daily rounds,' as if he was a doctor or something. Entering my office with almost clockwork precision. No doubt a product of all that military training. Usually, I find that mindlessly predictable. Yet another typical example of a typical soldier who's been trained and conditioned to follow a prearranged set of habits, routines and commands.

But with Shepard, it was different. It meant he cared enough to show up on time. It meant he was reliable. Dependable. I found it reassuring—no. Not that. Well, yes, that too. But if I had to describe what I felt, reassuring wouldn't be the first thing that came to mind. It would be more accurate to say it was... relaxing.

Yes. Relaxing. It meant I didn't have to worry. There were so many things I had to monitor. Intelligence reports to analyze. Current events to monitor. Crew efficiency to evaluate. Progress and maintenance reports to assess. Billions of permutations to calculate and recalculate. Having some factor—some _person_—that you could rely on was such a relief. I never knew how much I needed someone I could depend on until Shepard came along.

Then we kissed and everything became so _complicated_.

I got up and changed into my exercise clothes. Simple. Loose-fitting. 78% polyamide, 22% polyester. Just the sort of thing you'd use for an intensive physical and biotic workout.

Normally, I mapped out and reviewed everything I had to do during my exercise. The usual mass of reports that were generated each day. How long it would take, down to the minute. How much buffer room I should allot for unexpected delays, a depressing amount due to the incompetence and ineptitude of other parties.

But I had found myself spending more and more time thinking about Shepard. It started when we began holding work dates—he coined that phrase midway through the second date. It seemed apt. We spent the time going over work; the kind of work that didn't necessarily have to be done in groups. But we did it together. Alone. Just the two of us. With jasmine tea and some kind of baked good. The latter tended to vary, depending on whatever Gardner had made that day. But the drink of choice was always the same. It was enjoyable and lovely. Not as efficient—the amount of work we did took 43.7% longer to finish than if I had done it alone. But enjoyable nonetheless. I told myself that I could always make it up later if the amount of buffer time I'd allotted was insufficient.

That wasn't an empty boast—if I had to work harder to make up for lost time, I would. And even though I strived to work as optimally and efficiently as possible, there were always ways to get that extra percentile of performance. But surprisingly, it was... easier. I felt lighter, more relaxed, more able to adapt to the added stress of falling behind schedule.

Maybe it was a good thing. I did enjoy it, after all. He said it wasn't a mistake or an accident. That it was real and he wanted to pursue it. And we definitely pursued it. Not just in the physical sense, though we certainly did make some headway in gathering data on all the various carnal permutations. **(2)** Which was never a hardship, considering that the sex was incredible.

More importantly, I _believed _him. He was remarkably good at compartmentalizing and hiding things, maybe more than he realized. **(3)** But some things... it was amazing how honest and earnest he could be. Sometimes, he was this close to crossing over the line and through the grey zone to innocent and naive. But I knew he wasn't playing me. He wasn't manipulating me. He wasn't using me.

There was this... this happiness in knowing he was there. That we were together. Whether sifting through progress reports on the Normandy or shooting it out on some station or base or planet, we were together. We might be separated at times due to work or other circumstances. Things happen. But at some point, we'd meet up again. We'd be back together.

Which made the present circumstances even more frustrating. Unbearable, even.

Shepard was off on a mission. For Admiral Steven Hackett. I knew his record: born in Buenos Aires in 2134. Placed in the Advanced Training Academy for Juveniles following the death of his mother in 2146. Impressed the entire teaching staff for his aptitude for science and leadership. Enlisted in 2152 and made a name for himself for frequently volunteering for high-risk missions, specifically establishing colonies beyond the Sol Relay. Became a second lieutenant by 2156. Participated in the First Contact War in 2157. Set a record for fastest promotion in subsequent years to the rank of admiral. Quickly gathered a degree of political influence equal to David Anderson—who was a Captain at the time—or Donnel Udina—then the Alliance ambassador to the Citadel. **(4)**

I had heard that he'd requested Shepard's help on several occasions in 2183, while he was a Spectre and trying to find Saren Arterius. I'd even found some reports on some of those operations, thanks to some of our—the—Cerberus contacts within the Alliance. But I never appreciated how... distracting it was until Shepard told me. He never said it out loud but, reading between the lines, I could tell he was occasionally annoyed by these seemingly unnecessary and certainly inconvenient distractions.

And yet, he did them. Even if it delayed his investigation into unravelling what Saren was doing. Even if it pulled him away from his hunt. Because someone needed help and that's what he did. He helped people. He said it was all part of the job, but I knew it wasn't. Even if his job didn't require him to do so, he'd do it. That's who he was. That's why he helped Admiral Hackett all those times. That's why he was helping him now.

At least Shepard wasn't going alone. Granted, he had probably completed solo operations in the past—his military record certainly suggested that, even it was somewhat sparse on details. But he hadn't done any in the last couple of years—more if you counted the two years I spent bringing him back—unless they were so classified and top-secret that they weren't recorded in any Alliance or Citadel databases.

I understood why he left me behind. If he had to go in with a small team instead of the entire squad, he might as well pick individuals who were suited to stealth. Could you imagine Grunt or Jack trying to sneak around and be quiet? The mind boggles. But a thief who became the best in the galaxy by _not _making a name for herself and a former assassin who specialized in finesse and style would be suitable choices.

As for me, someone had to look after the Normandy. To make sure she was performing within normal, if not optimal, parameters. To make alternate plans should the mission go awry. That would be me. No one else could do it as well as I could. Perhaps that said more about my perfectionism and need for control than anything else. I don't know for sure. I just accepted that I wasn't the best choice.

I wish I could come, though. Usually I have the benefit of being a knowledgeable expert in many fields, rather than a simple jack-of-all-trades. **(5)** But this time, I was forced to concede that my talents were lacking. There was no denying that I could do the job, but not as well as Kasumi or Thane.

But that meant I had to stay behind. It had only been two days and already I found myself wondering what was going on. Hoping that everything was going well. Trying to convince myself that I had no reason to worry.

The exercise didn't relieve my concerns. Maybe a good shower would help.

The time was 0450.

* * *

At 0502, I began my daily downloads. The amount of intelligence reports had been drastically reduced since I cut ties with Cerberus, but I still had a few links to try. If nothing else, it gave me more time to peruse current events. And distract me from my worries. While the computer was downloading, I left my quarters to grab my breakfast.

"Ma'am," Gardner nodded. He finished serving breakfast to Patel before reaching for a dish. "Right on time."

Not really. I usually left my quarters between 0500 and 0501. But it was close enough, I decided. Gardner apparently felt the same way. "Your usual Monday breakfast: two whole wheat tortillas with scrambled eggs and lean bacon, one glass of skim milk and one yogurt with granola. Uh, sorry to say there's no fruit this time—never got a chance to restock. Wasn't about to pay Illium prices for fresh fruit."

Once upon a time, I might have chastised him. Mildly, since even I had to admit that we'd had an unusual series of detours and delays over the last couple weeks. And Gardner had been sending e-mails warning that our supplies were running low, so I knew he was aware of the situation. I might expect perfection, but I can be reasonable.

Now, I simply assured him that I understood the reason behind the deviation from the usual meal and that our next stop should be at the Citadel—which was still expensive, but not completely and utterly outrageous. Then I returned to my office. As I expected, the downloads were complete. So I sat down, took a sip of milk, and began reading while I ate my first tortilla.

The intelligence reports were few, to say the least. There were only two reports today. One listed another transfer of credits from CDR Holdings and the Terra Nova Commonwealth Bank to the Milky Way Foundation—further proof that they were front companies for Cerberus. **(6)** The other listed a refined process for making polycrystalline-composite materials, which I could only surmise was to make reinforced transparent screens or windows for use in combat situations.

I'd been compiling a series of intelligence reports detailing everything I knew about Cerberus—resources, funding, front companies, standard practises, known operatives, missions and so forth. While I was loathe to send them to just anybody, considering how thoroughly Cerberus had infiltrated the Alliance and other established parties, I did send a few reports to Admiral Anderson upon Shepard's request. We agreed that the longer I waited, the less valuable and informative these reports would be. Furthermore, Anderson was one of the few people who could trusted to balance humanity's interests with those of the galactic community, while actually having the clout and influence to do something. A far cry from my position and stance a year ago, I'll admit.

Saving my latest intelligence compilation, I began my second tortilla—normally I would have finished my yogurt by now—and began reading the news. There was the usual mix. Some of it was interesting—like the colony of Drasta instituting a barter system for the first ten years to discourage raiders, force colonists to learn more about their new home and screen out delusional romantics. Some of it was trivial, like weekend box office ticket sales for various vids.

Then I reviewed the maintenance and progress reports from the previous shift. I was pleased to see there was everything was fine. A few things were a single standard deviation outside the norm, give or take, but nothing required immediate correction.

So I closed all the files and folders before getting to my feet. I rigged my omni-tool to receive any reports, updates or developments. Then I left my quarters.

The time was 0549.

* * *

At 0550, I began making the rounds of the ship.

Shepard had suggested, with ever-increasing frequency, that I get out of the office more often. That it was not healthy to stay 'cooped up' within the confines of four walls. I told him that it was easy for him to say, considering I did all the work. He thought about that, then quickly changed the subject. I considered that a win.

Nevertheless, he had a point. Besides, I had someone who could help me out with the paperwork. Hence the rounds.

There wasn't much to do on Deck One, since the only inhabitant was currently spearheading a prison break. So after feeding the fish—what? Someone had to do it. Do you have any idea how much whining and complaining the crew would have to endure if the fish wound up floating belly-side up?—I began my sojourn of wandering the decks and haunting the crew with my ghostly pallor and witty repartee on Deck Two.

The first person I met was Kelly Chambers. Not ideal, I'll grant you, but unavoidable unless I wanted to take a sharp detour upon exiting the elevator. Might as well get it over with, I told myself.

"No new messages at your termin—Ms. Lawson," Kelly broke off and stiffened upon seeing me. "Sorry, I'm just used to Shepard coming out of the elevator at this time."

"He is rather punctual," I agreed. "I just thought I'd check in and get a report in person."

"No complaints, concerns or issues," Kelly reported. After a pause, she added "The only thing—I wouldn't have even brought it up, but since you're here—the only thing that comes to mind was a comment Tali made yesterday. Something about a ton of work to do today?"

"Monthly maintenance," I confirmed. "On top of the daily concerns."

"Ooh," Kelly winced. "Sounds painful."

"I'm sure they can handle it," I said. Then, because social convention required it, I asked "How are you doing?"

"Oh, you know, fine."

She was a lousy liar.

"If you don't mind my saying so, Shepard had mentioned that you were still having nightmares about the Collector base," I prodded.

"Yeah, but like I said, it's nothing serious. I can handle it. Won't affect my work."

Of that, I had no doubt. She had continued to file her reports with the same thoroughness and punctuality I had observed before. I had a feeling that, contrary to her protests, she was still suffering some degree of PTSD. **(7)** Unfortunately, my talents did not extend towards psychology or therapy. As loathe as I am to admit that I am not perfect at everything, this was one instance where I would willingly swallow my pride and concede that there may be other individuals more qualified to help. **(8)**

"How about you?" Kelly asked.

"Me?" I asked blankly. "I'm fine."

"Must be hard, sitting back while Shepard goes off."

"He can handle things without me," I said. "Besides, he's not alone."

"Yes, but it's different for you. Considering you and Shepard are, well, you know, close."

I looked at Kelly. She grew paler, which was fairly impressive considering her natural skin tone. "Oh, I didn't mean to pry... I didn't know you... people were saying... not that I was saying... or taking part... or listening... or, um..."

A part of me found this rather amusing, which was probably why I let her stammer on and on for a couple seconds before intervening. "Yes, I'm concerned. And worried. But I'm confident he will return in one piece."

"Oh, sure, I didn't... yeah, like you said, he'll be back. Yep. Right. I'm gonna... um... open this file. Right here. And then I'll... do... uh, stuff."

I let a flustered Kelly go back to work and walked towards the cockpit. As I passed various crew members, I asked for a status report. I noticed two points of similarity: one, everything was fine. Which was probably true, but it was amazing how unoriginal they were in their responses. Two, everyone tensed up as I approached and visibly sagged with relief as I departed. Once, I would have been happy to see that. Now... now I wasn't so sure.

"Hi, Miranda," Joker said as I entered the cockpit. "Everything's fine, the ship's flying like a dream and I haven't lost anybody. Though the day is young and I haven't had a drink yet, so who knows what'll happen? Not that I would ever drink on duty."

I wasn't surprised that Moreau knew I was coming. EDI undoubtedly told him. Shepard had mentioned that they conversed frequently, particularly after Jeff had removed her locks. I wasn't as sanguine as Shepard seemed to be about that, but she hadn't betrayed us. Yet. And I did have a contingency scenario should she suddenly go rogue.

"Jeff is still trying to adjust his humour heuristics," EDI told me. "Which is hampered by the fact that he has yet to isolate them."

"For the gazillionth time, EDI, I don't _have _humour heuristics," Jeff groaned.

"You have only said that thirty-eight times, Jeff."

"That's it?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Are you lying?"

"No."

"But if you were lying, you'd say that."

Somehow, I didn't recall hearing about this stunning repartee before Moreau unshackled her. "And the two of you are okay?" I asked.

"Yep," Jeff nodded. "Still hobbling and limping around."

"I am operating within normal parameters," EDI replied. "Therefore, I am indeed okay."

"No, that's not right," Moreau sighed. "You only have to say you're okay. Nothing about parameters."

"That would not be accurate."

"She's not asking for accurate."

Well, I wouldn't mind some more accuracy, but Moreau did have a point.

"Then how can you ensure that the information you transmit is correct if you do not impart it in its entirety?"

"It's called reading between the lines, EDI."

"I get the point," I hastily intervened. "I'll leave you to your... business, then."

"Hey, before you go, how're you holding up?" Moreau asked. "You know, with Shepard away while you're stuck here."

"I'm fine," I told him.

"Are you certain?" EDI asked. "The frequency of your meetings with Shepard have increased over time. I detected a significant change in your pupil dilation and the thermal output of your erogenous zones during and after those encounters. Furthermore, analysis of my audio recordings indicate that you did become physically intimate with the commander."

Oh, God.

"Really?" Moreau asked, turning towards EDI's avatar with sudden interest. "You saved those files, right?"

"Mr. Moreau," I said sweetly. "I have demonstrated time and time again the potency of my biotics. Against people I consider to be my enemies. Enemies with shields, armour, biotic barriers, combat-grade hardsuits... and no physical ailments."

I clenched a fist and generated a small biotic field. Moreau looked at my glowing fist, down at himself and realized that he was wearing nothing but a Cerberus-issue set of fatigues and still had Vrolik's syndrome. "Uh, never mind, EDI," he said quickly.

"Smart move," I approved.

"But seriously," Moreau said before I turned to go, "I spend a lot of time sitting up here, all safe and sound, while Shepard's off on some crazy mission. All I can do is listen in and sometimes offer warnings over the comm. Sometimes, I can't do that and I'm totally in the dark—like now. So while I don't know what it's like making out with Shepard—and, by the way, I don't _ever_ want to know—I can tell you straight up thatI'm an expert on this." He did have a certain perspective, I had to admit. I appreciated the sentiment... and the implicit offer. "Thank you," I said.

"No problem," Moreau replied. "Now see, EDI? Miranda and I had a nice conversation without spelling everything out with pinpoint accuracy."

"You are certain that—"

"Yes, EDI."

My next stop was to visit Jacob in the Armoury. "Miranda," he greeted me. "Anything I can help you with?"

I shook my head. "Just checking in and seeing how things are going."

He raised an eyebrow. "You filling Shepard's shoes while he's gone?"

Figured that Jacob would be the one to notice that first. "Something like that," I shrugged.

"Well, we've got copies of every weapon and heavy weapon. Plenty of thermal clips and power cells for all of them. And when you see Garrus, tell him they're all calibrated so he doesn't have to come up and help me out."

"He'd better not," I scowled. "He's supposed to be helping me with some paperwork."

"Yeah, I know you have a lot on your plate right now," Jacob chuckled. "Probably doesn't help that you... um, have another reason to worry about the commander."

I looked at him. "You mean..." My shoulders slumped. "How many people know?"

"Honestly? By now?" He shrugged. "I'd say half the crew knows it, the other half's holding out for hard proof."

"Wonderful," I sighed.

"Oh, come on, Miranda," Jacob said in exasperation. "We're cooped up on a ship. We've been serving together for about a year now. You think no one would've picked up on it?"

Shepard had said the same thing. "I would have hoped that the gossip mongering would be a little less rampant," I said sourly.

"No such luck," Jacob laughed. "Local scuttlebutt's pretty thorough. Anything else I can help you with?" **(9)**

Actually there was. Ever since that one-night stand, which he mistook for the start of something more, I'd been trying to make amends. It had started with helping him find out the truth about his father, but recently another opportunity had arisen. **(10)** I was curious to see how that had gone. "Not really. More a question: how did that date go?"

"You mean the blind date you set me up with, what's her name, Tyra?" he snorted.

"Ooh," I winced. "That bad?"

"Let's just say I'd only have a shot with her if I had breasts and blue skin and those 'hair things to tug on'."

I winced again. "Really? Nothing in her profile suggested that."

"Sounded like it was a recent thing," he said. "Before that, it was black guys with really big... uh, you know."

Yes. I know. That's partly why I picked her. Though Jacob and Tyra did have other mutual interests. I wasn't that shallow, after all. But I guess I now knew _another _vocation that I wasn't good at.

"Thanks anyway," Jacob said. "It was fun, even if it didn't pan out."

I'm sure he was just being polite, but I appreciated the gesture. "I should let you get back to work."

"No problem. If you need to talk, you know where to find me."

It was on that note that I left to visit Mordin in the tech lab. "Mordin, I—"

"Not now! Not now! Much to do!"

Mordin was... running around the lab. Arms waving about. Eyes larger than normal. Skin glistening with sweat. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was an incompetent or novice researcher. Or possibly in the throes of a drug-induced high.

"Why isn't it done? Need results now! Now! Faster, faster, faster!"

He rushed to another instrument. "Ah. Good. Simulation complete. Chances of rejection... only 78%. Better. Far from ideal."

Yes. Whatever he was working on, I agreed that a 22% success rate was 'far from ideal.'

"Entering new parameters. Starting new simulation. Maybe cells done?"

Cells?

Mordin ran to an incubator, opened it and brought out several stacks of petri dishes, all full of fluid and—presumably—cells. He scanned them with his omni-tool. "Good. Good! Have enough for experiments."

Somehow, he managed to run to the vacuum-sealed chamber without spilling anything. He put the cells in and tapped a few controls. "Have time now."

"Glad to hear it," I tried. "I was wondering—"

"Can get headstart on statistical analyses."

Or not.

He ran to a computer while the automated instrumentation inside the chamber started moving the petri dishes around. As they administered various liquids, he pulled up a spreadsheet and started crunching numbers. Graphs popped up, flickered and changed as his fingers flew over the keyboard, so fast I could barely keep up with all the changes. And my eyesight's, well, perfect. "So I see everything's in tip-top shape?"

"Yes," Mordin nodded absently. "Good thing too. Many experiments to do. Yes. No time for equipment breakdown. Lives at stake."

"'Lives'?" I repeated.

"Yes. Lives. Can I help you with something?"

Switching mental tracks again. For most people, it would be difficult to keep up. But as I'd proven on countless occasions, I was anything but 'most people.' "I was wondering if you had had a chance to look over—"

"Papers! Yes!"

Oh, good. He did look over it—wait. Did he say papers? As in plural?

"Let me see, let me see... yes! Study on impact of hormonal modification on physiology! Might be what I need."

Might be. But it wasn't what I was asking about.

You see, one of Mordin's many experiments bore some very interesting results. Publishable results. Which was important to me since I was an author on that paper, along with Dr. Chakwas. Furthermore, I had conducted enough research, crunched enough data and wrote enough of the paper to be given _first authorship_. On my first academic paper. Even for someone with my gifts and talents, that was quite an accomplishment. Students could spend years working and publishing before getting first authorship. So you can imagine my interest in finding out whether Galactic Science had replied.

From what I saw, though, there was a good chance he'd forgotten to check his e-mail.

"Wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no! Quality controls insufficient! Data set too small. Results suspect! Don't care about turians! Note to self: don't say that to Garrus. Might misunderstand. Back to paper: analysis inconclusive! Try again! Try again!"

And if he had remembered, I wouldn't get anything out of him right now.

"This better. Recognize author. Used to be good. Hasn't published anything in two years, though."

Giving up, I left the tech lab and made my way to the elevator.

The time was 0600.

* * *

It was still 0600 when the elevator stopped at Deck Three and let me out. I decided to start aft and work my way clockwise.

I couldn't see Thane or Kasumi, for obvious reasons. So the next person was Garrus. I said my hellos as I walked along. A lot of conversations suddenly stopped or trailed off as I approached, only to start up again as I passed by. More confirmation of why I could never really replace Shepard. Everyone liked him. Everyone _feared _me.

Once upon a time, that didn't bother me at all.

"Miranda," he greeted me as the doors hissed open. "Is it 0600 already?"

"Garrus," I replied. "Yes it is."

"And Shepard still isn't back yet?"

"Afraid not."

"Damn," he sighed. "I was _really _hoping to get out of all that paperwork."

"Sorry," I apologized. "You're stuck with it. If it makes you feel any better, you'd be helping me out and you only have to handle this shift's reports."

Which wasn't completely true. I had set things up so I would get those reports as well. That way, I could see what Garrus saw, see how he handled them and offer any suggestions as needed. Plus, if I found myself with spare time on my hands, and he made an unexpectedly severe mistake, I could go through the reports and redo them myself.

"I guess the calibrations can wait," Garrus said. "How are you doing, by the way?"

"Why does everyone keep asking that?" I demanded. "Does the entire ship know about me and Shepard? Are they laying bets on what we're doing together? Never mind that it's none of their business. I'm sure they're thoroughly entertaining themselves with bets on whether it's simple talking or making out or having sex and how we're doing it and who's on top and all other sordid details. And why are they asking now? Have you noticed that all this interest coincides with Shepard being off on assignment? Has the 'scuttlebutt' decided that I'm at risk of falling apart just because he's out there while I'm stuck here?"

"I think there's a simpler explanation than that," Garrus replied. "They're asking how you're doing to be social. That's it. And you're noticing it more right now because you're moving around the ship more than usual and having more face-to-face contact with your crewmates now."

"And yet most of the people I've talked to alluded to my relationship with Shepard," I told him.

"Because they know you're worried about him. They're trying to cheer you up. Not to mention they're also letting you know that they're thinking of him too, even if their reasons are different than yours."

"And yet everyone freezes up around me when I'm in the immediate vicinity."

"Are you surprised? You spent years establishing that kind of reputation and months enforcing it. Did you really expect things to change that quickly?"

Very reasonable. The simplest explanation being the most likely, and all that. "Makes sense," I allowed.

"Glad you think so."

A thought occurred to me. While Garrus was probably correct, his answers—specifically, the way he phrased them—sounded familiar. "Have you and Jacob been comparing notes?"

"Yes," Garrus said matter-of-factly. "And he would have said what I just said if you asked him the same question."

Which I didn't, probably because of a subconscious concern that it might bring up old wounds regarding our previous liaison. "I see. Thank you for... well, for all of that."

"Of course," Garrus nodded. "Miranda," he added as I turned to leave. "I'm worried about the stupid oaf too."

"I know. Thanks again."

My next stop was the medical bay. "Dr. Chakwas," I greeted her.

"Ms. Lawson," Dr. Chakwas replied. "What brings you here?"

"General inquiries about the med bay and the paper that we've been working on with Mordin."

"I see," she said. "Med bay's fine overall. We have a full stock of medi-gel and a decent supply of our drugs and medical supplies. I did want to talk about our blood bank, though. Specifically, our dextro-blood. We have enough for Garrus if he decides to follow Shepard's example."

"Sadly, that's less a question of 'if' than 'when'," I sighed.

"I'm inclined to agree," Dr. Chakwas sighed. "Which means he'll stagger in, wounded and bleeding profusely. _After _I clean the floors, with my luck. I was more concerned about Tali, though. Our stock of bacteria-filtered, viral-filtered, prion-filtered and irradiated dextro-blood will be expiring within the next week. We need to visit the Citadel and get a fresh supply soon."

Specifically, we needed a source that either had or could process dextro-oriented blood to the high standards required by quarians—or immunocompromised turians. I quickly ran through the possibilities. Option one—we go to the turians. Either their homeworld, one of their main colonies or any of their larger capital ships. Assuming they didn't open fire at a ship with Cerberus markings before asking questions. **(11)**

Option two—we find the Flotilla, explain that one of their own needs a fresh supply of blood on the off-chance that she might suffer a traumatic injury in the near future and offer our own stock in return. While doing our best to avoid mentioning that the one human who was in their good graces wasn't on board, that we were on a ship with Cerberus markings, and that there was a geth and an unshackled AI on board.

Option three—we go to the Citadel, where we had gotten our dextro-blood in the past. Granted, that was when we were still with Cerberus, who had paid off the right people. However, those individuals were still receiving payments, thanks to funds that I had siphoned off after cutting ties with the Illusive Man. Therefore, it seemed like the best choice. "We'll head for the Citadel as soon as Shepard and the others get back," I said.

"Excellent," Dr. Chakwas smiled. "Was there anything else?"

"Yes," I said. "Have we heard back from Galactic Science?"

"I'm afraid so," Dr. Chakwas replied. "Our paper has been rejected." She held up a hand before I could say anything. "I've looked over their comments. Most of their concerns are either minor editorial changes or experiments that we had done after submitting the paper. However, I don't think that's the real reason."

I raised an eyebrow. "And the real reason would be..."

"They accepted another paper that covers the same research we did. When I checked around, I discovered that the other party submitted their paper a full week _after _us. I suspect that one of the authors on the other paper knows one of the Galactic Science editors and used that relationship to their advantage."

"That... that... that's underhanded and... dishonest," I sputtered furiously.

"Agreed," Dr. Chakwas replied. "Mordin and I have already sent e-mails expressing our disappointment and disapproval. However, I doubt the editors will change their minds. I'm afraid this sort of cutthroat manoeuvring and politicking happens all the time in the supposedly hallowed halls of academia." **(12)**

"So where does this leave us?" I wanted to know.

"Submit to another journal, of course," Dr. Chakwas replied. "I've almost finished making the changes Galactic Science suggested, just in case our second choice has similar concerns. Which they shouldn't, considering a former classmate of mine is chief editor."

It would appear that Dr. Chakwas could play the academic game as well.

"Don't worry—I'll let you look over the paper before submitting," she reassured me.

"All right then," I said. "If you think of anything else, let me know. I'm going to say hello to Legion while I'm here."

Yes. That's right. I was about to exchange pleasantries with a geth. The galaxy had truly become a stranger place.

Legion was waiting for me when I entered the AI core. At least, I thought he was waiting for me. An understandable assumption, I thought, considering he was sitting on his bench and facing towards the door. But it... or they... never greeted me. "Legion?" I finally said.

"Miranda Lawson."

Well, at least I was being acknowledged now. "I just wanted to see if you were all right. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"You did not. We are operating within normal parameters. At present, we have partitioned some of our programs to converse with you while the rest of us continue our efforts to study quarian psychology."

"And how are you studying quarian psychology?" I asked.

"We are conducting another playthrough of 'Fleet and Flotilla: Interactive Cross-Species Relationship Simulator, version 1.0.95. Our last playthrough took 75 hours and 6 minutes, but only yielded a final score of 15 points. That score was classified as 'Hopeless.' We hope to improve upon our previous results."

"You… you're trying to understand quarians by… playing a _game_?" _**.**_

"Yes."

I didn't know whether to cover my mouth and muffle my laughs or rub my eyebrows in a preemptive effort to forestall any headaches. "Legion… I don't think an online computer game based on a vid that came out a decade or so ago will be helpful." **(13)**

"Playthrough complete. Time: 76 hours, 26 minutes. Score: 17 (Hopeless). Our analysis supports your assertion. Can you suggest an alternative?"

"If you want to study quarian psychology, you may want to peruse other sources," I suggested. "Peer-reviewed academic literature. Psychology journals. Historical accounts to see how certain events were recorded and interpreted. Sources on culture and art."

"We see," Legion said. "Preparing search string now."

"Or you could try talking to the quarian working one deck below you," I added, almost as an afterthought.

Legion's head tilted to the side, as if that angle would provide greater insight. "Previous efforts to establish contact have met with hostility and failure. Our efforts to analyze Creator psychology were intended to avoid encountering such a scenario again."

"I appreciate that, but 'Fleet and Flotilla' is... a romanticized and fictional source. It's not particularly reliable. Perhaps you should consult more credible sources. Anything other than that game. Or the vid—don't use that as a reference either. Then talk to Tali."

"You propose that Creator-Tali be used as a test case for future contact with the quarian people? A proof-of-concept? A trial run?"

"Well... yes," I admitted. "But you probably shouldn't say that out loud. For that matter, you shouldn't approach her with that in mind. It will probably affect your interactions and skew the results."

I'll admit I was slightly taken aback. Not with the matter-of-fact tone that Legion had adopted or the reduction of this conversation to technical terms, but the fact that part of me found that appropriate. As I had said, I wouldn't be so crass or uncouth to say them aloud, but, once upon a time, I would have approached situations with those terms in mind, forming a mental framework that would guide my planning. And now? Had I really changed that much?

"We must analyze this new input," Legion stated. "Once we have formed a consensus, we will proceed on our next course of action."

"Okay," I said. "Then I suppose I will go."

"How is Legion doing?" Dr. Chakwas asked idly as I left the AI core.

"Trying to understand quarians by playing a computer game," I replied. "I think I've managed to explain that that strategy won't be particularly effective."

"One would think so."

"By the way," Dr. Chakwas said, "I'm sure you've gotten several inquiries by now regarding how you are doing, particularly given whatever may or may not be going on between you and Shepard. I'm also sure that you're getting rather tired of it. If you ever want to talk about it—or vent over the sudden interest in your personal life—you can always come to me."

Finally. Someone who wasn't so damn nosy, however good his or her intentions might have been. "I'm fine, and I've already vented, but thank you for, well, for not asking."

"You're quite welcome."

My next spot was the Starboard Observation Deck. Samara was sitting on the floor in a meditative pose, looking out the windows at the stars.

"Samara," I greeted her.

"Ms. Lawson," she returned. "Is there a problem?"

"No. Just seeing how you are doing."

"I am at peace, considering the mysteries of the void and one's place in the galaxy."

Uh huh.

I'd met people like Samara. Some of them put on these airs and talked in such vague, abstract terms in an effort to elevate themselves above as many people as possible. A way to pretend they were part of the intelligentsia; better than the unwashed masses that surrounded and outnumbered them. If I were to be honest with myself, I might fall into this category, though I never had to 'pretend' anything.

Other people did it accidentally. They were so used to thinking and talking in that manner, it never occurred to them that most people wouldn't understand what they were talking about. Perhaps they were just really out of touch with the way the rest of the galaxy worked.

Like many sapients, I had developed a protocol to deal with such individuals. It involved evaluating the need or purpose for this meeting, trying to identify anything—people, places, subjects and so on—that would steer the individual towards a more desirable form of behaviour, simultaneously identifying anything that might exacerbate unwanted behaviour and thus should be avoided, and mapping out the fastest way to obtain whatever I needed to end the conversation as quickly and efficiently as possible.

When I described this process to Shepard, I could tell he wasn't expecting such a detailed process. He should have known better, even if our relationship had taken on a more personal element. But, to his credit, he only paused for approximately 0.5 seconds before dubbing it 'Miranda's Humour and Handle Protocol.'

Whatever you wanted to call it, I initiated the protocol:

Purpose—to gauge Samara's status (OK) and be apprised of any problems (none).  
Subjects that were safe—unknown. I simply didn't know her well enough.  
Subjects to avoid—details unknown. It was probably a safe bet to eschew the categories of crime, punishment and justice.  
How to end the conversation—I had gotten what I needed to know. A simple 'I should go' would suffice. So that's what I did.

I hit the crew quarters last. Patel and Royston were there, staring at something on his omni-tool. They jumped to their feet when I entered. "Ma'am," they said in unison.

"At ease." It seemed like something Shepard might say. I think. "Just seeing how things were going."

"Um..." Patel glanced at Royston. They didn't do a good job at hiding their confusion. "Everything's okay," she said at last.

"I—I was just showing Patel a drawing my daughter made," Royston stammered. "Would you like to see?"

"Sure."

Patel and Royston looked at each other again. Clearly they weren't expecting that response. But Royston complied. The painting was... crude. Simplistic. Out of proportion. Basically what you'd expect from a child her age. "Not bad," I offered.

"Yeah," Royston beamed. "Isn't it?"

I made a few more polite noises before excusing myself and making my way towards the elevator.

The time was 0639.

* * *

At 0640, I emerged on Deck 4.

My first stop was the Port Cargo Area, which was the present home of Grunt. This shouldn't take long, I thought. We had nothing in common, after all.

Still, that didn't mean our conversation wouldn't be... trying. I imagined him talking on and on about shooting things or hitting things. Perhaps he'd be in some krogan blood rage, throwing things around the room and trying to head butt everything in sight.

So you can imagine my surprise when I entered the Port Cargo Area and found the latest member of Clan Urdnot sitting down. And reading. "Grunt."

"Miranda."

"What are you doing?"

"Reading."

"I can see that," I said, trying to be patient. "What are you reading?"

"The Old Man and the Sea."

That I was not expecting.

"It's by some human called Hemingway."

"Yes, I know," I said. "Ernest Hemingway. Regarded as one of the authors of the great American classics. 'The Old Man and the Sea' was the last book he published before his death in 1962, though some of his work was published posthumously. I didn't realize you read his novels. What did you think?"

"Felt bad for the old fisherman, Santiago. Having all that bad luck, being shunned by just about everyone, but still trying to be accepted... reminds me of the way I had to fight for a place to belong, just because I was tank-born."

That was... really unexpected.

"And the way he caught that marlin after all those days of struggling, then fighting off the sharks trying to get back? Kinda like my Rite of Passage, the way we fought those varren and klixen and the thresher maw! Only the Rite was way more exciting. And the thresher maw didn't get eaten up before Clan Urdnot got it—Santiago's marlin got eaten up by the sharks."

"Um... wow," I managed. "Do you think you'll become a fan of Hemingway?"

Grunt thought about it. "Maybe. I don't know. There's this other book of his: 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' I liked the parts about people getting together and bonding and making sacrifices. But the way Hemingway wrote about this Spanish Civil War thing? I don't think he liked fighting or killing."

"Some people don't like fighting or killing," I suggested.

"Yeah," Grunt snorted. "They're silly like that."

This was more like what I'd expected. "I see."

"Also, all that talk about fishing makes me hungry."

Naturally. "Well, I'll leave you to finish reading then."

"Miranda."

"Grunt."

That was quite remarkable, I thought as I left. I wondered if Shepard knew about this part of Grunt. **(14)**

After that unexpectedly enlightening conversation, I went to Main Engineering. When I arrived, everyone was busy working. Not that they didn't work before. But they were working in a very specific way. The one that said 'This is Monthly Maintenance Day, but we still have to get work done and keep everything running even if it takes twice as long.'

This meant I didn't have to talk to Kenneth Donnelly, who would reply while staring and drooling at my breasts. I wouldn't have to talk to Gabriella Daniels, who would be petrified into a state of 'Yes ma'am, no ma'am.'

I still needed to get a status report, though, so I went over to Tali. Who seemed to be hopping back and forth between two—no, now it was three—computer consoles. "Tali?"

You'd have thought I was wearing a geth costume, the way she froze and stiffened. "Miranda," she said hesitantly. "What do you want?"

"Just seeing how things are going," I replied.

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"That's what I'm here to find out."

"So you're expecting to find something wrong."

"No, I'm not. I'm just..."

"But you just said..."

I'm fairly certain that Shepard never had these kinds of problems. But then, people trusted Shepard. They _feared _me. "Look, Shepard asked me to walk around and check in on the crew while he was away. Just like he normally would do."

"So you're just filling in for Shepard."

"Yes."

"That's it."

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

No, I was just monumentally bored out of my cranium because I had nothing better to do. Maybe a different strategy was required. "Look, Tali," I sighed. "I'm just trying to make sure we're ready in case Shepard needs us. Especially since we're not around to make sure he stays out of trouble."

The new strategy worked, judging by the way Tali relaxed. "Yeah, he does have a way of getting into dangerous situations," she admitted. "Usually involving gunfire."

"Or explosions," I added.

"Or varren."

"Or husks."

"Or Thorian creepers."

We paused, staring at each other. "You know, not all humans have such a... an eventful life," I said. "Certainly my life was significantly less stressful before Shepard came along."

"Same here," Tali chimed in. "I used to think that all humans had this magnetic attraction to danger. But Shepard wasn't the only human serving aboard the Normandy. Talking to Adams—our chief engineer—and Ashley—Gunnery Chief Williams—and the others, it was clear that Shepard was... a unique case."

"That he is," I said, somewhat wistfully.

Tali and I were silent for a minute, thinking about a certain commanding officer. "He seems happier now," she said at last.

"Does he?"

"Yes. So do you. I guess all the... scuttlebutt, I think it's called, is true."

Oh for crying out loud. Everyone really had heard about the two of us. This was strange—I had never felt so embarrassed. "Um..."

"Maybe you can keep him out of trouble."

"You _have _met Shepard, right?" I asked wryly.

"I'm a quarian serving aboard a human ship that used to belong to Cerberus," Tali pointed out. "Anything's possible."

She was right. Things had changed. Cerberus operatives had brought a man back from the dead. They'd worked with aliens. Fought and bled and almost died beside them. Some of them might have become... colleagues, if not friends. And now many, if not all of those operatives were either reconsidering their affiliations or had cut ties with Cerberus. Maybe it was possible.

There was another silence. Not as tense as the last one. It was more reflective. Almost serene.

Then the alarm went off. Of course.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Tali cried, wheeling towards the computers.

It would have been a waste of time to ask what the problem was when I had two genetically enhanced eyes that were in perfect working order. And those eyes told me that one of the kinetic barrier emitters had gone off-line. It didn't mean we were helpless. The multicore shielding Tali had installed would automatically revert from the enhanced Cyclonic Barrier Technology which oscillated and deflected incoming attacks—to conventional kinetic barriers that simply blocked and absorbed. But it wasn't ideal.

"EDI," I said, raising my voice ever so slightly, "can you finish the monthly maintenance while Mr. Donnelly and Ms. Daniels assist Tali?"

"_Affirmative."_

"That would help," Tali agreed. "Thanks—to both of you. Ken, Gabby?"

Sadly, the three of them could handle things from here, which meant I was free to... visit Jack. I wasn't particularly looking forward to this, but she wasn't worth the effort of deliberately ignoring.

Jack made her home below Main Engineering, in the bowels of the ship, surrounded by pipes carrying waste and other things. Typical.

"What the fuck do you want?" Jack spat when I arrived.

"Just seeing if you're still here," I sneered.

"Sorry to disappoint."

"Oh, I'm used to being disappointed by you."

"Fuck off!"

"I'd say it's a pleasure, but it's not."

"Bitch!"

"Wretch!"

The rest of our brief conversation involved a back-and-forth volley of curses and imaginative language. Enough said, I think. **(15)**

Zaeed was the last person I saw. He was trying to entertain himself. One can only compact trash and eject it from the ship so many times before the novelty wears off. "Everything all right, Zaeed?"

"Bored stiff, but I'm fine," he replied. "This piece of shit still works like a charm."

"Happy to hear it," I said.

"You know... this reminds me of something."

Uh oh. Shepard had warned me about Zaeed's penchant for reminiscing about past glories and old missions. Not that I needed it: Zaeed had shared one or two tales while the squad was out on a mission. Unlike now, when most of the squad was sitting back and cooling their heels on the Normandy.

But Zaeed was still talking, so I focused on him. "...knew this girl once. Asari. Good head on her shoulders. Eyes so wide and dark you could drown in them, and that was before that thing they do when they sync their body to yours during sex. Speaking of which, guess you learn a lot when you live up to a thousand, 'cuz fucking her sweet ass was just out of this world."

Oddly enough, Shepard's warnings hadn't covered anything like this.

"The two of us had a good thing going... until she sold me out to the Blood Pack."

Ooh.

"Kinda put a sour note on the relationship."

"I would think so," I said. "What happened?"

"You really gotta ask?" Zaeed snorted. "Think I sat down with them all polite-like? Talked shop over a cuppa tea and some biscuits? Hell, no! I killed every last one of them goddamn mercs!

"That's when I found out how to really make a krogan piss his pants. You need a knife, see? Good, sharp, strong steel. Or whatever your omni-tool can manufacture. Get it stuck in the right way and you can pull that plate right off a krogan's head." He demonstrated it with an imaginary knife, thrusting it into an invisible krogan with gusto and prying it out with just as much joy. "It's the best way to get a krogan to talk. The threat of it drives them mad. After putting down a couple krogan and all their vorcha cannon fodder, I was struggling with this really big krogan. Wound up killing him just like I told ya. Well, that scared the shit out of the last krogan—thought I'd killed him, but turned out he was just winded. Wuss practically begged me not to peel his plates off. Swear to God, it's true. All I had to do was take a step forward, knife in hand, and he spilled his goddamn guts. Found out where the bitch was hiding. And enough intel to complete a month's worth of contracts, most of them before the clients had even got the word out."

"And the asari?" I wanted to know.

"Tracked her down to a seedy bar. She was giving some Blue Sun a blowjob. Blew his brains away, stuck a gun in her face—not my ol' rifle Jessie. Wouldn't want that bitch's spit to touch her—and told her to blow it if she knew what was good for her. Pulled the trigger as soon as she wrapped her puffy lips round the barrel. Blew her brains all the way across the room. Then I had to clean her saliva off, of course."

Well. That was... pleasant.

"Looking back, should've known she was a two-faced bitch. Couldn't trust her. Never shed a tear over what happened. Not like you and Shepard. He ain't the type to leave you hangin' high and dry. Not his squad. Not some fucking loser he just met. Certainly not his girl."

Of course he knew.

Zaeed nodded soberly. I must have let my composure slip, just for a moment, and let something through. "Kid cares about you. Bet you're the best thing that ever happened to him. Though he probably hasn't said he loves you yet, right?"

What... the... how did he...

"Poor bastard's probably scared shitless," Zaeed sighed. "Figures if he puts it out there, and you don't say the same, then he's basically been shot down. All the bullets and husk bites and thresher maw venom in the galaxy ain't gonna hurt half as much as that."

His eyes narrowed. "You better not be jerking him around, and I don't mean in the hot and sweaty kind of way. 'Cuz if you break his heart, then you're no better than that asari who sold me out... and now you know what I did to that bitch."

I don't think he could have made the threat any clearer. "Understood," I said.

"Good," Zaeed nodded, leaning back against the wall. "I should let you go. Talk more later, Miranda."

The time was 0703.

* * *

At 0704, I checked back with Tali and the other staff in Main Engineering. The barrier emitter was fixed and they were back to their monthly maintenance duties. In fact, they were almost done—thanks to EDI's assistance. Ken and Gabby were quite profuse in their compliments and appreciation. Tali's gratitude was just a nanosecond slow.

I was just on my way to the elevator when EDI contacted me over the comm. _"Ms. Lawson, we are receiving a coded message over the pre-arranged emergency channel."_

My heart sank. That channel was only to be used if something had gone very wrong. I quickly backtracked to Main Engineering. "Tali!"

"Maintenance done, shields on-line," she called back. "We're ready to go."

"Good. Garrus? Joker?"

"_GARDIAN laser systems on-line. Thanix cannons prepped. Naturally, all weapons are calibrated," _Garrus replied calmly.

"_Message is coming from a Kodiak-class shuttle," _Joker informed me_. "Moving to intercept. ETA: six minute."_

"_Weapons locked," _Garrus reported.

I turned around and left. "Open a channel," I ordered, stopping by one of the terminals in the hallway outside Main Engineering. "Patch it through to this terminal."

"_Opening channel now," _Joker told me. _"Patch it through."_

"This is the Normandy," I said. "Identify yourself."

Thane and Kasumi appeared on the computer screen. _"Ms. Lawson," _Thane began. _"I regret to inform you that the situation is quite serious."_

"What happened?"

"_We infiltrated the prison without any difficulty,"_ Thane began. _"After some searching—"_

"—_and inevitable looting on Shep's part—"_ Kasumi added.

"—_we found Dr. Kenson and rescued her,"_ Thane continued. _"Extracting her proved to be more... complicated. Shots were fired and so on. But we got away. Dr. Kenson explained that she had found a Reaper artifact that confirmed their existence and indicated that an invasion was imminent. They were planning to use the relay in this system, which they dubbed the 'Alpha Relay', as it had the unique ability to virtually any relay directly. Without the need for any secondary relays."_

"How..." I trailed off.

"_Something about the right setting giving it a big boost of dark energy,"_ Kasumi explained.

Ah. That would theoretically allow it to do what Thane had just described. Though why they were telling me this instead of Shepard was... concerning, to say the least. "Go on," I nodded, trying to ignore that sinking feeling.

"_Realizing the severity of the situation, Dr. Kenson and her team concocted a plan to destroy the relay by manoeuvring an asteroid into a collision course."_

"But... even if that is possible, the resulting explosion would theoretically wipe out the entire system," I realized.

"_Yeah, Dr. Kenson said the same thing,"_ Kasumi nodded. "_But she felt it was worth the risk. They set up a base on the asteroid where they found the artifact and began smuggling in everything they needed to jury-rig it. But they kinda slipped up and the batarians twigged on to their plans."_

"_They managed to capture some of Dr. Kenson's team,"_ Thane continued. _"By the time we arrived, she was the only survivor. _

"_Unfortunately, the Reaper artifact—which they dubbed 'Object Rho'—indoctrinated them. Dr. Kenson and her team turned on us when we arrived to investigate the veracity of their claims. They didn't want to go through with blowing up the relay. They wanted the Reapers to come!"_

"I see," I said slowly. I felt like I was slowly toppling over into a deep, bottomless abyss. "Now that you've gone to all this trouble to tell me this, why don't you tell me where Shepard is?"

Thane and Kasumi looked at each other. Inside, I felt myself falling into the aforementioned abyss.

"_Shepard suspected this might happen," _Thane finally said_. "He had concerns as soon as he heard that Object Rho had informed Dr. Kenson of the Reaper invasion in a vision. So he devised a plan: if the destruction of the relay was compromised, we would get clear and alert you. Anyone who couldn't make it would stay behind and buy the others time to escape."_

Of course he would say that. Of course that stupid, brave, noble man would do that. Because that's who he was.

I needed a moment to compose myself. Part of me, the old me, was disappointed. Part of me wasn't surprised. Part of me didn't care. "What are his orders," I said as soon as I was sure I wouldn't burst into tears.

"_The Reapers will arrive in a day and a half,"_ Thane said gravely. _We have that much time to evacuate as many inhabitants of the Bahak system as we can before the Reapers arrive, keeping in mind that the asteroid has to hit the Alpha Relay before the countdown hits zero. If the asteroid's trajectory is tampered with or altered, then we need to find another way to destroy the Alpha Relay."_

"_Shep... Shep knew... he knows,"_ Kasumi corrected herself. I was grateful for her use of the present tense. _"He knows that we can't possibly evacuate everyone in time. But we have to try. He said that while the Reapers had to be stopped, it wasn't enough to justify standing by and watching every living sapient in this system die. Not if there was something—anything—that we could do."_

"I see," I said, somewhat distantly. My thoughts were racing, formulating plan after plan, calculating all the variations and permutations, extrapolating the consequences and results. Thane and Kasumi stayed quiet and let me think. "Thane, Kasumi; thank you for informing me," I finally said. "When you touch down, go grab something to eat."

"_Understood," _Thane replied before closing the channel.

This left me with something of a quandary. I couldn't just leave him to the tender mercies of Dr. Kenson and her cronies. Who knew what they were doing with him—what they were doing _to _him. I couldn't just let them get away with it. I couldn't let them harm someone I cared about so much. Especially since I loved him.

Yes. There. I said it. To myself, but that should still count as some sort of admission. I loved him. The way he held himself. His idiosyncrasies—from his outdated taste in music to his borderline-pathological kleptomania. His quiet and understated sense of humour. His patience. His stubborn insistence on doing what he felt was right.

But that was the problem, wasn't it? Shepard had proven time and time again that he would put whatever he was doing on hold to help some random stranger in need of assistance. He would put the mission on hold to complete some miscellaneous assignment or mission. He would place the needs of others above his own wellbeing. He'd done it countless times before, and now he was doing it again. The only difference was that this time, he needed our help.

So what was I supposed to do? Rescue Shepard, the man I loved, or help thousands of people who I'd never met? I didn't know what to do. All I knew was that I had to come to a decision soon. Because the clock was ticking.

I checked my chronometer.

The time was 0714.

* * *

_(1): I actually was not aware of this turn of phrase. As best as I could tell, it began during the late stages of Shepard's preparations to assault the Collector base. Even then, it was not a frequently used term._

_(2): Everyone has their own way of describing it, I suppose. _

_(3): Readers will not be surprised by that observation._

_(4): It was not uncommon for Miranda to have an extensive knowledge on a variety of people as well as a variety of topics._

_(5): A human figure of speech used to describe an individual who had a fair competency in many skills while not being especially proficient or specialized in any of them. While Miranda may have been the exception in the sheer depth and breadth of knowledge in many areas, the fact that she was willing to concede that a more specialized expert may be required is striking._

_(6): Miranda was apparently aware of the true nature of CDR Holdings from her past activities with Cerberus. However, she did not know about the Terra Nova Commonwealth Bank until perusing the Shadow Broker's dossier on Cerberus. _

_(7): Post-traumatic stress disorder, a severe condition that can occur after an individual experiences one or more traumatic or stressful events. I have no doubt that watching hundreds and thousands of abductees be liquefied before your very eyes would qualify._

_(8): Another clear sign of progress, considering where she started from._

_(9): A human navy term for gossip._

_(10): Jacob's father went missing in 2175. Miranda detected his distress signal and rerouted it directly to Jacob's personal logs. Further information can be found in Shepard's personnel report._

_(11): A concern borne by the fact that they had yet to remove Cerberus markings from the Normandy, though individual crew members, such as Miranda, had begun removing insignia from their uniforms. One wonders how likely this scenario might be, however, considering that the Normandy's stealth systems would likely prevent the turians from detecting her in the first place. _

_(12): Sadly, this is true in any academic circle, regardless of species or field._

_(13): Agreed. Though Legion would not be the first to spend too much time in front of the computer. _

_(14): Shepard later told me that he was only aware of Grunt's exploration into human literature after reading the previous Shadow Broker's dossier on him, and did not realize how thoroughly Grunt had explored the themes and images to compare with his own life._

_(15): Astute readers will note that there was no mention of the 'threat list' Miranda had compiled of possible rivals for Shepard's affections._


	5. The Terrible Choice

_Author's Note: For readers (and reviewers) who have noted my usual posting pattern and noticed a discrepancy, let me assure you that the explanation is very simple: I lost track of the time that had passed since the last chapter was posted. If it wasn't for a concerned reviewer, it might have taken a little longer. A lesson, perhaps._

At any rate, here is the penultimate chapter to The Measure of a Hero. 

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Terrible Choice**

I had the weirdest dream.

I didn't realize it at first. As far as I could tell, I woke up in a corridor. A harsh light blazed down from somewhere. Getting to my feet, I saw the walls and floor looked the same, like they were made of the same dark-coloured material, though I couldn't tell you what they were if my life depended on it.

It was then that I realized my hardsuit was gone. So were my weapons. I was dressed in the navy blue uniform of a Systems Alliance soldier. Somehow, that didn't seem strange. It was noteworthy, certainly, but also seemed natural. Right.

A door stood before me. For some reason, I felt the sudden impulse to open it, so I did. I walked through the door into a room, warmly lit with light panels installed in the ceiling, as well as an actual, honest-to-God fireplace. Wood furnishings, bookcases and leather furniture filled the room; all in similar dark brown hues, all very expensive. I found myself walking across the white marble tiles towards one of the leather chairs placed in front of the fireplace. It turned when I was a couple steps away and I stared at…

…

…myself.

Not exactly, mind you. Unlike me, he was dressed in a black silk tuxedo that fit him so well, it had to be custom-made. His hair was slightly longer than military-standard, cut in one of the recent trendy hairstyles that you saw on all the vids. His eyes were like dark pools that occasionally offered a flicker or glimmer of fierce intelligence. He looked the very picture of a refined gentleman, an international man of mystery. Sitting there in his chair, looking so suave and debonair, his every move speaking of an unassailable confidence and insurmountable strength.

My double stood up and looked me over from head to toe. "Damn," he said. "You look like crap."

"You don't," I returned, taking a step forward. "Which is odd, considering how much you look like me."

"I don't just look like you," he said, mirroring my movements. "I _am _you."

"So… what? You're my long-lost twin brother?" I asked. "Ooh—I can see it now: separated by birth. One grew up amongst the stars, flitting from ship to station in the constant presence of the military. The other grew up in the lap of luxury, a silver spoon in his mouth. One—"

"Oh for crying out loud," my double sighed, rolling his eyes. "Will you listen to yourself? You're unconscious, you nitwit!"

"I'm unconscious," I repeated. "And that makes you… what? Hyde?" **(1)**

"Nothing so black and white, but at least you're on the right track now," he replied. "Think of me as your subconscious. Your inner voice that gives you all your bright ideas. That instinct that gets the back of your neck tingling when the shit's about to hit the fan. That animal, primal side of you that keeps you alive in all those gunfights. Your better half, in other words."

"Wouldn't that mean you're also the guy who gives me nightmares?" I pointed out.

"What can I say?" he shrugged. "I get bored."

"Uh huh," I said dryly. "Is that why you're talking to me now? Because you're bored?"

"When you're stuck in the backseat and limited to the odd suggestion here and there, you can only entertain yourself for so long," Subby replied. **(2)** "Now if I was in the driver's seat, man, then we'd have some fun! We'd get a lot more sex, too."

"Um, yeah, but wouldn't that mean we'd pick up scale itch or some other sexually-transmitted infection, Mr. Bond?" I asked. **(3)**

"You might have a point there," Subby conceded. "Guess that's why you're in charge. Well, that and all the snappy nicknames. And I have to admit, when you finally decided to stop being celibate, you really did pick a hot one. I mean, have you seen Miranda? She's _gorgeous_! And stacked!"

I didn't realize my subconscious was so… um… single-minded. "She's also got a head on her shoulders," I reminded him.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's not here," Subby dismissed. "You don't have to be all nice and politically correct on me. Hell, you're asleep. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to distract you from answering a couple questions."

"I'm interrogating myself now?" I laughed. "Really?"

To my surprise, Subby looked serious. "It's funny. You've been running around, gunning away, volunteering to help Anderson out. Volunteering to help out Hackett, after all the crap he kept sending our way. Now you're on your own, doing a big, scary solo mission. Off to save the galaxy from the Reapers and everything."

"Yeah," I said slowly. "So?"

"So it's kinda easy, isn't it?"

That was not what I was expecting. "Easy? You think constantly getting shot at and dealing with big, galaxy-ending revelations is _easy_?"

"Easier than opening up to Miranda."

Where was he—I, whatever—getting this? "Huh?"

"Seriously, why haven't you told her how you feel? It's not like this is your first date or something. God knows it's been long enough."

"Well, I don't know. I just, didn't, because, well, I don't know."

Subby didn't look convinced. To be fair, I didn't exactly deliver a stirring rebuttal or anything. "Or maybe it's part of a trend. You haven't exactly had a string of girlfriends, you know."

"Yes," I said sarcastically, "because bimbos looking for some time in the limelight are oh-so-attractive."

"Okay, fair enough," Subby admitted. "There's something to be said about not getting laid with just anyone. But maybe you were a little relieved when the only girls who seemed to be interested in you were that shallow."

"What are you talking about?" I protested.

"You know what I'm talking about," Subby said. "It meant you had an excuse not to look because you convinced yourself you'd only get more of the same. It meant you didn't have to take a risk and put your heart out there. Like you did with Jill. Remember her?"

And just like that, Jill was there. Slim, slightly petite, slightly pale. Brown hair tied in a ponytail. Quiet, gentle, maybe a little nerdy. She looked at me with those big, chocolate-brown eyes. Giving me that cute quirky smile that made her so endearing.

"Remember all the good times we had?" Subby asked quietly. "All the laughs, all the dates, all the funny little jokes? Then came the breakup. You remember that, right?"

Jill's outfit changed to the one she was wearing on that fateful day. Her eyes welled up with all the tears that started trickling down her cheeks.

"She couldn't take it anymore. All those deployments, all the waiting, all the uncertainty. It was too much." Subby turned to me. "She was the first, you know. First girl you kissed. First girl you… well, you know.

"First girl you said 'I love you' to."

"What are you getting at?" I asked with gritted teeth.

"It's one thing to not want to throw around those words lightly," Subby replied. "You want to wait until you genuinely mean it... unless you're holding off because you somehow think that saying those words will lead to a breakup and getting hurt all over again.

But you know: you've changed. You've grown. Miranda's not Jill. She's been with you ever since you got spaced. The only waiting she's had to do came from this mission, because she got left behind. Any uncertainty she might have is wondering why you haven't said anything."

I didn't say anything. Partly because arguing with yourself is a classic sign of a deranged mind. Partly because my subconscious had a point.

"Look, you're in the driver's seat. You're the only one who can say what needs to be said. And you know that you don't have much time left. Not if the Reapers are coming. Not if you're still planning to do what you have to do. Not if you're gonna own up to it. You'll have to do something. Soon."

Subby looked up. "Speaking of soon…"

"_Shepard has been sedated constantly for two days now," _a female voice echoed overhead.

"Sedated?" I echoed.

"Yeah," Subby nodded. "Like I said, you're unconscious. But not for long."

The lights from the panels and the fireplace started to dim. _"We've had to increase each dose," _I heard.

"Time to wake up," Subby said as the shadows enveloped him. "Better make the most of it."

* * *

If you get enough training—or maybe watch enough vids—you'll learn how _not _to wake up in enemy hands. Groaning and grunting and flailing about is the best way to lose any advantage you might have had by being dismissed as an unconscious sack of meat.

First thing to do is keep a steady rate of breathing. Suddenly breathing faster or slower than usual is a great way to ruin things. Next, keep your eyes closed. You have four other senses. Might as well use them.

In this case, my other senses picked up a couple things. I felt a hard, but slightly padded surface, which suggested I was on a cot or bed of some sort, but not one geared for maximum comfort. My mouth felt a little dry, but not too much, which suggested that either I hadn't been unconscious for that long or someone had been keeping me hydrated. I couldn't smell anything significant, so I set that aside.

The most interesting thing, however, was what I heard. "It seemed like Shepard was waking up a moment ago," I heard a woman say.

Right. I'd been unconscious. I remembered her saying something about sedatives earlier. Though, come to think of it, there was something else she said. Something that was bugging me.

"But that could be a glitch in the system."

Keep thinking that.

"No glitch."

That didn't sound good.

"The sedatives aren't working! Security!"

Aw, crap. Well, guess the jig is up. I popped my eyes open and bolted to my feet... only to sway and stumble as a sudden dizzy spell swept over me. After two days lying down, suddenly going upright might not have been the best idea.

As the dizziness subsided, I glimpsed a bio-scanner out of the corner of my eye. Guess the readings it was taking gave me away. Of greater concern was the woman with short-cropped blonde hair, datapad in hand, and the two security guards who watched her run from the room. They turned back... and realized why their colleague was so concerned. One of them tried to raise his assault rifle but was blocked by his partner, who was too busy gawking at me. At least, I think he was gawking. Hard to tell with the helmet.

Before they could do anything, I was all over them, fists flailing away. Both of them went down, seconds before a kinetic barrier sprang to life. Not that I could've escaped before it went up, since I was too busy wincing and shaking my hands-knocking out armoured goons with bare knuckles _hurts_. **(4)**

Turning my head, I saw the blonde lower her hands from the console she'd used to trap me and cross her arms in smug satisfaction. Clearly, she thought I was trapped. It was up to me to prove her wrong, so I started looking around. Granted, I was in a medical bay, but you never knew what might be lying around. The last time I woke up in a medical bay, there was a hardsuit waiting for me. **(5)**

No hardsuit this time. Just a bed and a mechanical arm, both of which were bolted down. Several drawers, which I opened one after the other in quick succession. All empty.

I tried the next room. There was a computer terminal there—

_"Step away from the terminal!" _I heard the woman snap over the comm.

Of course I stepped towards the terminal. There was the usual stuff. E-mail software. Extranet browser. Mech control interface—hello. I opened the latter and started poking around.

"Hello! What have we here?"

Now I knew why the blonde was so insistent I stay put: for some reason, Dr. Kenson and her indoctrinated buddies decided it was really important to have a terminal that could remotely activate and control mechs. LOKI-class mechs, to be exact. Each armed with a M-4 Shuriken submachine gun and a full stock of thermal clips. And the terminal was inside the med-bay. With me. Why I have no idea.

"_Security! I need backup in the med bay!"_

But I wasn't in a position to ask a lot of questions. Let's see. Press this button. All right; a LOKI mech unfolded, stood up and went on-line. And I could see through its vid-cam. What's next? Hmm, let's see. These keys controlled basic direction—forward, reverse and so on. These keys made it swivel. And these keys made it shoot its gun. Wow. This was just like those vid-games I used to play as a kid, back before I enlisted in the Alliance and got to shoot things for real.

Having figured out that I wasn't going to step away from the terminal or resist the urge to remote pilot my own mech, the blonde opened fire. I shot back. Didn't take long before she went down.

"_Unknown user detected in network," _a bodiless VI reported overhead. _"Engaging security protocol."_

That security protocol being more LOKI mechs. I commanded my mech to start shooting. "Excuse me," the enemy mech stated as it shot back. I managed to strip off its armour and start plugging away at its chassis just as another mech approached. Two on one. Not the best odds, but I managed to handle it.

"Allied force casualty," the second mech reported as I took out the first one. Soon enough, there were two allied force casualties. "Requesting assistance," was the last thing it said, just before it collapsed to the ground.

Sadly, assistance was very prompt. Just as I steered my mech around the corner, another pair of LOKI mechs said hello. With bullets. My mech finally had enough and blew to smithereens.

So I activated another mech, sent it forward and started shooting. "Backup systems engaged," mech number three said as I shot off a plate of armour around its head.

"Careful," mech number four admonished as its partner blew up. "Taking aggressive action," it added as I started plugging away. "Backup systems engaged," it managed, just as I took it down.

Then I marched the mech around the corner and forward. I directed it past the kinetic barrier—and briefly marvelled at the absurdity of looking a mech face-to-face and not ducking for cover. With a few keystrokes, I had the mech pan around. I didn't want to depend on its fine motor skills to hack the control panel. Thankfully there was another method.

I steered it towards a nearby power junction that I could see behind a glass door, which obligingly opened as the mech approached. Then I told it to start shooting. The resulting explosion took out the power junction, the mech…

…and the barrier blocking my escape. Yes!

Kenson must've been monitoring the situation, because the next thing I heard was her voice from the PA system. _"Shepard's escaped! All available personnel to the medical wing! Do not let him activate the Project."_

Which would be a lot of people, if the opposition I'd faced so far was any indication. I guess when you have a Reaper artifact brainwashing everyone, it's easy to attract followers. Better get ready. Spying a computer terminal, I stopped to check it out. Maybe they would have something useful.

Sadly, all it had was a research log. I started one of them while I explored my former prison. _"The Project is almost complete," _Dr. Kenson said as I grabbed some medi-gel._ "I thought I'd feel a sense of accomplishment but instead… I feel dread. I can't help but think we are doing something terrible."_

Yeah. That would be the indoctrination kicking in. I ran into the next room, the one with the mechs and the blonde. Spying another terminal, I found another log and started it playing while I looted some mech parts that could be stripped down and salvaged for credits. _"I woke up this morning in a cold sweat," _a woman's voice—possibly the blonde—reported, her voice trembling. _"The nightmare was back, the one with the enormous starship crawling through the Citadel and all my friends turning to dust. Even now I can see it in my mind. Why won't this stop?"_

Well, maybe I could stop it. If only I had something like one of those submachine guns or a sniper rifle or…

…

…or my hardsuit and weapons, neatly sitting in a corner. That would do, I suppose.

I quickly grabbed my gear. As I put my hardsuit on, I looked at the countdown timer, which was conveniently displayed overhead…

…aw, crap.

When everything went to hell, the Reapers were just over two days from arriving. The blonde had said I'd been sedated for two days. Now I had one hour, fifty-six minutes and fifty-one seconds to get this asteroid moving and get the hell out of here. No pressure.

I did a quick security scan of my hardsuit's systems while I re-activated the disruptor mods on my weapons and made sure I had a full stock of thermal clips. The sweep came up clean. Guess Kenson and the others figured there was no point in installing a booby trap in my hardsuit when I was snoozing away and the Reapers would be here soon.

As I loaded a fresh thermal clip into my sniper rifle, I spied one more room. Ducking in, I found a couple bookshelves, a table and chairs, some eezo and a research log. I started the log while I tucked the eezo away: _"When it's silent," _a male voice said, _"when there's no one else around, I can hear it. Whispers in the back of my mind, and I can't tell what they're saying. I spoke to Dr. Kenson about it and she seemed to understand. What the hell is going on?"_

For people who were supposedly briefed, they sure were lax about this obvious symptom of indoctrination. Maybe they weren't briefed. Or they recognized the signs but thought they could handle it. Or maybe they were too far gone and didn't realize it.

Whatever the reason, it was definitely too late for them. But there was still time to finish what they'd started.

I'd have to deal with the consequences later.

* * *

The door was locked. Standard encryption. Easy to bypass.

I'd only taken a few steps when my HUD picked up a pair of contacts. They were close together, so it was easy for me to zap their shields. From there, a couple fireballs and some carefully placed shots took them down.

"_Tomas… Maxwell… report!" _a male voice said. Over the loudspeaker. Where anyone could hear them. Well, if they wanted to tell me what they were doing, I wasn't about to complain. Just as long as they weren't trying to lead me into a trap.

"_Shepard's past them," _Dr. Kenson broke in. _"All personnel, get in there!"_

Though if they were trying to fool me, they were doing a really bad job of it. Maybe the galaxy had decided to give me a break. Might not be much, but I'd take whatever I could get at this point.

"_Secure the Project Control room!" _she continued as I went past the bodies of Tomas and Maxwell, through the door and into a corridor, one whose windows gave a great view of the asteroid and the base. _"Do not let Shepard in there!"_

"_Initiating Maximum Security protocol," _the first voice confirmed.

I entered a large room. It was partitioned into separate areas with columns and see-through walls. Lots of couches and bookshelves.

"_Shepard's in the living quarters!" _Kenson reported. _"Seal off Project Control!"_

Not sure why she had to repeat herself, but I was too busy sniping a hapless guard to think about it.

"Stop Shepard!" one of the other guards shouted. "Now!"

My shields took a couple hits as I found cover. So I drained his shields to replenish them. Then I set him on fire. While he was flailing around, I fired a couple shots from my submachine gun to finish him off. Spying another guard, I switched to my sniper rifle and fired a shot. The bullet went right between a pair of bookshelves and through his helmet. The splash of gore told me the bullet hit his skull and brain.

One more guard, according to my HUD. Easy pickings, once I'd stripped his shields and set him on fire.

I headed for the door, scooping up thermal clips and more mech parts along the way. As I entered another corridor with another great view, I heard the guard and Dr. Kenson talk over the loudspeaker. _"Shepard is tearing us apart," _the former complained.

Kenson wasn't very sympathetic. _"Regroup!" _she snapped.

The next room I entered looked like a mess hall. There was a guard who was looking the other way. He didn't get time to turn around before I sent a bullet through his head and into the wall.

"Get in there," I heard someone yell as I ducked behind a pillar. "Use that flamethrower!"

Checking my HUD, I spotted three guards. Spotting the one toting a tank full of flammable fluid, I stripped him of his shields, waited until he passed one of his buddies, and sent a ball of plasma his way. The resulting explosion took him out and distracted the other guard, which gave me plenty of time to switch to my submachine gun and mow him down. Then there was just one more guard, but it was child's play to zap his shields. From there, all I had to was set him on fire, charge him while he was slapping the flames out and give him a good punch in the jaw.

Another two guards entered from another door on the far side of the mess hall. I greeted those latecomers with Tali's little gift, removing their shields in the blink of an eye. While they were still staggering back in shock, I shot one of them with my sniper rifle. I ducked behind a counter as the remaining guard came to his senses and fired back, tossing a flashbang grenade my way for good measure. Like that would even the odds. I just waited for the inevitable flash and deafening noise to die down before shooting him with plasma and bullets.

As he collapsed to the ground in a charred and bullet-ridden heap, I started poking around. Grabbed some more thermal clips, looted a safe and found another datapad with a log to play: _"Kenson's acting strange lately. Like she doesn't care about the Project anymore. And I know I'm not the only one having those dreams."_

Yep, it did seem to be going around.

"_The Reapers are coming, she says. But I'm not sure if I'm hearing fear or hope in her voice."_

Safe bet to lean towards the latter, I'd say.

Seeing nothing else to loot, I left the mess hall. **(6)** I kept expecting to open a door and see another indoctrinated guard. So when I opened that second door and saw a hapless schmuck minding his own business, I already had my sniper rifle raised and ready to fire. Didn't even need to cloak to blast through his shields and take him down.

The noise attracted his colleague's attention. Not that it mattered—I kept her distracted with attack after attack that whittled down her shields, then a few bolts of plasma. Then a couple bullets. Don't think she ever fired back once.

By that point, more reinforcements had arrived in the form of a guy with tech armour and two stooges. Two shield-draining hits left him wide open. I sent a fireball his way, then had to duck down as a flashbang exploded right in front of me. Squinting through the blinding glare, I managed to keep tabs on the hostiles through my HUD. They weren't pressing their advantage, which was good for me. Once I blinked the stars out of my eyes, I set the boss on fire again. Then I pulled out my sniper rifle. Two shots were enough to take out the last two guards.

With that out of the way, I was free to search around. More clips were never a bad thing, especially when I was on my own. Eezo never hurt. And, to feed my curiosity, another research log:

"_The longer we're here, the more I'm convinced the Project must be stopped," _Dr. Kenson said. _"We simply don't know enough about what the Reapers want. It's foolish to assume that the Reapers mean doom for the galaxy. Legends say they've come through before, and yet life continues doesn't it?"_

Well, yes, life did go on. But only life that was considered too primitive for the present cycle. All other life had been wiped out or harvested. The fact that Kenson was hemming and hawing and rationalizing was definite proof, if any was needed at this point, that she'd drunk the Reaper indoctrination Kool-Aid. **(7) **

Leaving the room, I passed through another corridor sporting another great view. The corridor was darker, though, with only minimal lighting from the base's exterior lights. I tried not to view that as an omen. Moving into Pod 2B—according to the sign stamped on the wall—I saw I was outside a large room filled with machinery. _"Shepard's heading for Project Control," _Kenson announced. _"Get in there! Now!"_

People were already in there, judging by all the shooting. I drained a couple shields here and there, but they had the advantage of numbers. As far as I knew, there was only one way into Project Control. And they knew that. All they had to do was keep spraying cover fire at the door and keep me outside long enough for one of their flamethrower-toting goons to spray me.

At least, I'm sure that was the plan. Unfortunately, I'd already ID'd that guy and had a fireball with his name on it. Couldn't quite time it to take out anyone else, but it worked.

Pressing my advantage, I tried to get some more intel on where everyone was, only to lose my shields in a hail of gunfire. Ducking back outside just before a fireball took my head off, I waited until my shields regenerated before switching tactics. Activating my cloak, I pulled out my sniper rifle and lined up a shot on the woman who tried to barbeque me. I exhaled, squeezed the trigger and blew her head clean off her shoulders.

As my cloak wore off, I leaned away from the door and switched to my heavy pistol. There were a couple people who still hadn't regenerated their shields from my earlier attacks. Time to make the best of it. One of them I set on fire. Another was taken out by a couple head shots from my pistol. Then I finished off the guy who was now sporting third-degree burns. Mercy kill, I'm sure you'd agree.

I spotted another pair of guards; one with an assault rifle, the other with a flamethrower. Raising my omni-tool, I zapped their shields, hoping to set things up for a two-for-one kill. Unfortunately, they realized the same thing and split up. So I wound up burning a single guy to a crispy critter. Now where'd the hostile pyromaniac go?

Ah. He was holed up by the door. No doubt he was waiting to press the trigger and hose me down if I was ever stupid enough to charge in. I'd deal with him later. Still three more hostiles. Activating my cloak, I sniped one of them. As my cloak wore off, I fired again. Didn't quite kill her, which let her lob a flashbang grenade my way. I had to backpedal before the resulting explosion blinded and deafened me. Unfortunately, she used that time to regenerate her shields. So I used my omni-tool to strip her of her shields and my heavy pistol to shoot a couple holes in her head.

Now for the would-be pyromaniac. I quickly moved back down the hall. He opened up as soon as he saw me, sending a torrent of flame a couple metres long, but I was safely out of range. Seeing that, he tried to retreat. Unfortunately for him, I'd sent some fire of my own his way. My attack didn't miss.

As the inevitable explosion sent chunks of charred meat flying everywhere, I charged into Project Control. There was one more guard with a very itchy trigger-finger, but I happily sapped his shields to restore my own. Then I set him on fire and shot him in the head while he flailed around.

Looking around, I was disappointed to see that there were no thermal clips to be found. I'd used up a few here and there and I wasn't out of harm's way yet. Settling for a bit of medi-gel, I made a bee-line for a large and elaborate set of computer terminals, next to another window display and a couple countdown timers. All showing the same time: one hour, forty minutes and twenty-nine seconds.

Aw, crap.

As I approached the console, a VI activated. _"Welcome to Project Control,"_ it said.

"Um... hi," I tried. "I want to activate the Project."

"_Warning: activating the Project will result in an estimated three hundred and fifteen thousand casualties."_ A number tracker obligingly generated the numbers, settling at three hundred and fourteen thousand, nine hundred and forty-two. _"Do you wish to continue?"_

That was the kicker, wasn't it? Did I want to continue? Did I want to consign all those lives to oblivion? Absolutely not. While I might have racked up quite the body count during all those missions, at least those bodies had guns and were fighting back. That was a far cry from snuffing out an entire system without them having the slightest inkling of their fate. Giving the galaxy a reprieve at the cost of three hundred and five thousand lives was a horribly bloody price. Besides, did I have the right to say who should die and who got to live another day? Again, absolutely not.

"_Do you wish to continue?"_

If only there was another way. If only we'd had more warning of Kenson's mission and her discovery. If only relations with the batarians were better. If only we had the means to evacuate the Bahak system. If only the galaxy believed my repeated warnings of the Reapers—their existence, their intent, their threat—and had begun preparations and plans to stop them. If only we had some other option.

"_Do you wish to continue?"_

Famous last words: 'if only.' Sadly, there was no other option. I could either do nothing, in which case the Reapers would start their invasion and spread throughout the galaxy before the various races knew what was happening, or I could employ the only means at my disposal that could stop them. At least, for now.

Reaching out, I hit the activation button. The light switched from red to green. A loud hum heralded the ignition of all the engines Kenson's team had smuggled in and installed before succumbing to indoctrination. Staggering back, I managed to stay upright somehow.

"_Project activation in progress. Warning: collision with mass relay is imminent."_

Oh God. I'd done it. I'd really done it. Just like that, with one button, I'd doomed this entire system.

"_Begin evacuation procedures."_

Evacuation. Right. Maybe I could still save a few lives. I opened a comm channel on all available frequencies. "Alert," I began. "All colonists living in the Bahak system. This is—" **(8)**

My comm signal was cut off in a squeal of static. Kenson's image appeared on a nearby monitor. _"Shepard! No!" _she cried out. _"Do you have any idea what you've done?"_

"Saving lives," I snapped. I tried to re-establish the connection, but failed. Kenson had locked me out of the comm systems. "I was trying to save more before you interrupted!"

"_You leave me no choice," _she said grimly. _"If we can't stop this asteroid, it must be destroyed!"_

Not if I had anything to say about it. "VI, tell me where to find Dr. Amanda Kenson."

"_Dr. Kenson is travelling to the reactor core module," _the VI replied, showing a picture of said core module for good measure, along with a few schematics.

The picture was replaced by Kenson's scowling face. _"An eezo core meltdown should do it," _she declared. _"Because of you, everyone on this rock will be obliterated!"_

"Not if I get to you first," I promised.

A pair of guards chose that moment to charge in. So we wasted a few minutes dancing the shoot-and-duck-and-shield-loss-and-plasma-burn-and-shoot-again dance. Once the guards dropped, I looked back the way they came. Turns out there was a second route into the Project Control room. One that led to an elevator. If memory served, that would lead me straight to the reactor core module. Sparing a final glance at the countdown timer, I downloaded a schematic of the base to my omni-tool before heading for the elevator.

I had one hour, thirty-eight minutes and thirty-three seconds to go.

* * *

Dr. Kenson beat me there, but only by a minute or so. I entered the room, gun raised. "Hold it right there!" I barked.

"Don't try to stop me, Shepard!" she warned. "I have to do this."

"I've already activated the Project," I told her. "There's still time for us to get off this rock! We can escape before it's too late!"

She turned away to look at the reactor core, as if the glowing light of eezo held the secrets to some great mystery. "There is no escape," she said sadly. "There's no redemption for what you've done."

I sincerely hoped she was wrong, though I had to remind myself that she wasn't really all there right now.

"I will die never having seen the Reapers' blessings. And you will just die."

OK. Definitely not dealing with a full deck there. **(9)**

She slapped a nearby console with the palm of her hand. Clear containment shields dropped, cutting me off from her. "Damn it, Kenson," I cursed.

"_Shepard is trapped!" _I heard her say as she ran from the room. _"Keep him in there!"_

I couldn't spare any more thought to her. While we were talking, another pair of guards had just entered the same door I had used. They'd used the conversation as a distraction to seal the door shut. Maybe there was a way to escape, but first I had to get past them. I stripped one of them of their shields, then did the same with the other guy once my omni-tool had recharged. After that, I started lobbing fireballs left, right and centre.

In return, one of them hurled a flashbang grenade at me. The explosion knocked me back, though I managed to stay on my feet. Hoping to press his advantage, the grenade tosser charged forward. Unfortunately for him, I had a fresh dose of plasma ready to go. While he was burning to a crisp, I ran towards the other guy. He quickly snapped off several shots in succession, but my shields took the brunt of it. Before he knew it, I was all over him, fists flailing away.

I spared a moment to search the room for another way out. No such luck, though I did find some eezo. Nice to know that if the galaxy came to an end, at least I'd be loaded with minerals. Then I went back to the door that had been sealed. No way past the lock. Couldn't even hack it. But it looked like, in their rush to seal me in—them, included—the guards hadn't quite fastened one of the panels properly. I smashed it open. Here we go! A little digital magic, the locks popped open and I was back in business.

I got back in the elevator and went up to the next floor. The gods keeping an eye on the galaxy let me swipe some more eezo before sending more hostiles my way. Once again, I activated my cloak. "Need help targeting!" one of the guards said aloud. I rewarded her by drilling a bullet in her head.

"There he is!" one of the survivors cried as my shields dropped. He was the next one I hit, this time with an attack that drained his shields. The other guy didn't last long before his shields went bye-bye. Diving into the room, I sent a fireball flying at one of the guards. He'd managed to slap out most of the flames when I sent him on fire again. Then I just got up and slammed the last guy's head into the wall a couple times. Yes, a little brutal, but I didn't really have time to waste.

For once, there were thermal clips to be had. Just a couple, but better than nothing, especially since I only had a limited number of clips and no backup to speak of. Halle-freakin'-lujah. I was this close to asking the galaxy to trade some eezo for some ammo.

Then I looked around. "VI! Status of the reactor!"

"_All automatic safety protocols have been overridden. Reactor core will go critical in fifteen minutes."_

That would give over an hour to spare before the Reapers arrived. "All right," I said. "How do I stabilize the reactor core?"

"_To stabilize the reactor core, manually insert Cooling Rod A from this control station. Manually insert Cooling Rod B from Control Station B. This will stabilize the reactor core. "_

A bit redundant, I thought. More helpful was the diagram popped up on a nearby monitor. Following the instructions I found the grey cylindrical rod, whose diameter was almost the size of my waist, turned it clockwise and pushed it down. "Done. Now what?"

"_Cooling Rod A re-inserted. Reactor cooling process has begun." _

Looking out the window into the reactor core module, I saw lines of pale blue fluid flowed down two see-through pipes towards the eezo chamber, which was crackling wildly with a violent fury. As I watched, a field of energy wrapped around the chamber, settling things down somewhat.

I could also see a countdown timer there. According to the time, I still had one hour, thirty-three minutes and forty-two seconds.

A hiss overhead told me someone was about to broadcast over the loudspeaker. As it turned out, it was Dr. Kenson. _"I need more time. Get in there."_

Taking the hint, I found cover. When the doors opened, I already had my omni-tool aimed. The two guards I saw were clearly planning to lob a flashbang grenade in, storm in while I was blind and deaf, and hose me down with bullets. Unfortunately, my attack—courtesy of Tali—stripped them of their shields. They were so surprised; one of them dropped his flashbang grenade. At least he was smart enough to kick it forward so the grenade didn't disorient either of them. He also broke away from his partner, forcing me to set only one of them on fire instead of both. I sent a couple more balls of plasma down the hall before ending things with a bullet apiece.

I made my way past their bodies, found another elevator and took it back down. One rod down...

* * *

When I got out, the door immediately facing me was locked. For safety measures, I saw—apparently, there was a broken piece of pipe that was venting plasma on the other side of the door. Sorta like a curtain of fire, I guess.

Spying an adjacent door that was not locked, I entered a side room. Looking around, I found some more medi-gel, some credits and a computer terminal. It didn't take long before I confirmed the plasma venting that was blocking my path was deliberate. More importantly, I figured out how to disable it.

"_Plasma venting aborted."_

I went back to the formerly-locked door and entered another chamber. A quick glance told me this was not Cooling Station B, so I ran through it and into the adjoining corridor. I stopped at a T-shaped intersection. Let's see—I think I want to go right...

"_Plasma venting in progress." _

But my HUD was telling me there were some hostiles coming from the left. I really didn't want to get shot in the back. Hopefully that last warning didn't mean anything either.

I got the first shot in, stripping two guards of their shields. They quickly split up. I gathered their plan was to have one of them lay down covering fire with his assault rifle so the other one could get close and hit me with his flamethrower. I couldn't get a bead on the latter, but the other guy was a different story entirely. Sending a fireball his way, I readied my heavy pistol to finish him off...

...when a flashbang grenade went off in my face.

"_Shepard is in the maintenance area,"_ Dr. Kenson announced._ "Go!"_

I snapped off a couple shots to keep them pinned down. Needless to say, I missed. Had to waste two more shots to finish him off. Then I sent a ball of plasma flying at the flamethrower guy. The resulting explosion was somewhat anticlimactic.

There were three more guards. I zapped their shields one by one, then started tossing fireballs around. I'd just barbequed the last one when another two guards came in. One of them had another flamethrower—apparently Kenson had smuggled more things into the Bahak system than eezo cores and thrusters. Figuring the would-be pyromaniac was of greater concern, I fried his shields first. He tried to set me on fire, but I ducked down and let the flames wash over me. Then I returned the favour, with substantially more effective results.

The last guy tried to attack, only to have a good chunk of his shields drained by yours truly. He hid behind a crate to ponder his next move—a crate didn't provide complete cover. I took the opportunity to pull out my sniper rifle, activate my cloak and lined up a shot. Poor guy never knew what hit him.

I tried heading right, but didn't get very far. That plasma venting I had been warned about had blocked the other route in. At least I got some more eezo out of it. After a minute of looking for another obliging computer to use, I gave up and went back the way I came. That decision was rewarded with enough thermal clips to finally fill up my stock and another exit.

Unfortunately, the exit was locked. Fortunately, some idiot had stacked some crates next to a wall. If my sensor readings were accurate, those crates were filled with some very volatile liquids. So I launched another fireball. The resulting explosion cleared another path forward. I pulled myself up through the hole in the wall and into another corridor.

"This is Williams," I heard. "I've got Shepard locked in the maintenance area."

I sneaked forward. One lone guard in front of a couple computers overlooking yet another part of the asteroid. "Requesting backup," he continued.

A sniper round popped his head like a ripe melon before he could say anything else. Pushing his headless body aside, I started tapping away at one of the computers. It didn't take long before my efforts were rewarded. _"Security lock overridden."_

Doubling back, I opened the unlocked door and entered a corridor. Two guards were just walking in from the other side. "Williams!" one of them cried as I took away their shields in the blink of an eye. "We're too late!"

The other one tried to avenge Williams' demise by opening up with yet another flamethrower. I hid behind a nearby crate and waited until the flames stopped. Then I launched a fireball. The resulting explosion took him out and stunned the other guy long enough for me to switch to my heavy pistol and shoot him.

With no other surprises, I consulted my schematic of the base. Following the instructions, I took an elevator up one level, swiped some eezo, took another elevator up and swiped some more credits. Needless to say, the eezo and credits were not on the schematic. I paused to look out one of the windows into the reactor core module. Kenson was there, tapping away. Whatever she was doing seemed to be taking a lot of attention. Maybe I still had time.

The fastest way to get to her was through the door on my left. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one who knew that. Six guards were waiting for me, according to my HUD.

Thankfully, only a few of them had a line of sight to the door. As far as they were concerned, the door opened spontaneously. While the two guys who were in the immediate area gawked, I took advantage of my cloak to line up a shot and score an easy kill. As I decloaked, I waited for the inevitable return fire to take place before zapping the guard's shields and, after a few seconds, setting him on fire. The next two guards arrived just in time for the guard's charred corpse to collapse and—more importantly—my cloak to recharge. Activating my cloak, I raised my sniper rifle and shot a guard in the head, then fired at the other guard a split second later. Both of them went down.

I moved in and found cover. The next guard who came along lost his shields before he knew what hit him. Then I sent a fireball his way. While he was slapping the flames out, I took him out with a couple pistol shots.

"_Reactor temperature approaching critical," _the VI warned.

That wasn't good. Neither were the three or four hostiles I detected hiding around the corner. But I had my wits. I had my weapons. I had my cloak.

And, most importantly, I could see a ton of thermal clips scattered all over the place.

After everything I'd just been through, it was child's play to shoot each and every remaining guard with my sniper rifle under the protection of my tactical cloak. After liberating enough thermal clips to replace the ones I'd used up, I stepped over all the bodies and into Cooling Station B.

I don't know why Kenson installed a wall safe full of credits in a cooling station, nor do I know why they had a stack of refined eezo sitting there. Taking it in stride, I just swiped it all before turning to the cooling rod. Looking down through the window into the reactor core module, where Kenson was still typing away, I pushed the cooling rod down.

"_Cooling Rod B re-inserted. Reactor meltdown averted. Core temperature dropping."_

Immediate crisis averted. And, according to the countdown timer, I still had one hour, twenty-four minutes and fifty-five seconds to go. Kenson looked up at me. _"You've done nothing, Shepard!" _she ranted. _"I can still override power to the engines! Try to stop me if you dare!"_

Immediate crisis averted. And, according to the countdown timer, I still had one hour, twenty-four minutes and fifty-five seconds to go. Kenson looked up at me. _"You've done nothing, Shepard!" _she ranted. _"I can still override power to the engines! Try to stop me if you dare!"_

Okey-dokey. I double-checked my schematic to find the fastest way to stop her. Apparently there was an elevator inside the Cooling Station—there it was! If I took it down one level, it would stop right outside the reactor core module. So I entered it and told it where to go.

A couple seconds later, I'd arrived. Come to think of it, all the other elevators in this base had been remarkably fast. Shame I was on the clock and everyone was indoctrinated. This rinky-dink asteroid base in the middle of nowhere held the secrets to timely elevator rides that didn't take an eternity. Imagine what a revolutionary change it could provide!

On a more serious note, I switched back to my heavy pistol and entered the reactor core module. I found her by one of the computers facing the now-calm reactor and lifted my pistol. "Step away from the reactor," I said clearly.

"You've ruined _everything!_" Kenson sobbed, slamming her hands on the console in frustration. "I can't hear the whispers anymore!"

Most people would consider that a good thing. Kenson, sadly, was not most people. "Turn around," I ordered. "_Now!_"

"You've taken them away from me. I will never see the Reapers' arrival."

She turned around and revealed a thin cylinder in her right hand. It looked like...

...

...like a remote control detonator.

Aw, crap.

"All you had to do was stay asleep," she said, arming the detonator with a flick of a thumb. "None of this had to happen."

"Kenson, you don't have to do this!" I tried one last time. "We can go back to Admiral Hackett. Remember Hackett? Your friend? We can still see him again! We can still get off this asteroid."

"No. We cannot."

I fired my pistol. Easy shot, from this distance. The bullet went right between her eyes.

Unfortunately, I hadn't taken a good look at the detonator. It was on a manual deadman's switch. One that was activated when her thumb relaxed and slipped off the button.

The explosion sent me flying into the wall...

* * *

"_Warning: collision imminent!"_

That sounded bad.

"_Warning: collision imminent!"_

I should probably do something about that.

"_Warning: collision imminent!"_

As soon as my head stopped shrieking in agony.

"_Warning: collision imminent! Shepard, wake up!"_

No such luck. At least that warning had changed.

"_Warning: collision imminent! Shepard, can you hear me? Please wake up!"_

I slowly opened my eyes. I could sort of make out a lot of legs. And someone in dark clothing crouched down before me, sweeping long dark hair away from a pale face.

Hang on. I think I just described someone. Closing my eyes, I started to shake my head and clear the mental cobwebs, stopped in the middle of the first shake when I realized how bad an idea that was and settled for a lot of rapid blinking. Opening my eyes again, I was relieved to see clearly again.

And I was _really _relieved to see the woman that my subconscious had been talking about. "Miranda?"

"Oh thank God," she breathed. "Are you all right?"

"Uh... can I get back to you on that?"

Rather than answering, Miranda ran a medical scan. She must have been satisfied with the results, because the next thing she did was extend a hand. I grabbed it and let her pull me to my feet. "Sitrep?" **(10)**

"Thane and Kasumi brought us up to speed," Miranda replied. "It was clear we couldn't rescue everyone without going through proper channels. By the time the political storms subsided and all the affected parties began even a semblance of communication and discussion, the Reapers would have already arrived and carved a bloody swathe through the galaxy.

"So I went through the crew and compiled a list of people. Friends, freighter crews, mercenaries, spec-ops units, people in intelligence work. Anyone who had access—direct or indirect—to ships. Preferably with the capacity to hold refugees, but I'd accept whatever I could take."

"While we were recruiting volunteers and calling in favours, we began going through the intel Liara gave us to map out insertion and extraction scenarios," Garrus continued. "EDI, Legion and Tali uploaded a bunch of computer viruses into the local satellite network so the Hegemony wouldn't get in the way."

"Will it be enough?" I asked. "Can we evacuate everyone in time?"

The entire squad exchanged looks with each other. That was all I needed to know.

"Damn," I whispered. I looked away, trying to keep the tears from welling up and only partially succeeding. My eyes focused on a computer terminal. It showed the pre-programmed flight path the asteroid would take to collide with the Alpha Relay. And if my blurry eyes were seeing things correctly...

...

...the asteroid was right on top of it!

Miranda helped me over to the computer. Please let there be something more useful than some stupid recording, I prayed. I know the galaxy has a thing for my eternal suffering, but couldn't it throw me a bone just this once—yes! Comm system! I activated it and cleared my throat. "Joker, this is Shepard," I snapped. "I need a pick up. Now!"

"_Communication systems damaged."_

Oh for crying out loud! "Damn it!" I spat.

"_Evacuation protocols in effect," _the VI told me, undeterred by my use of language. _"All personnel report to escape shuttles."_

Nice to know Kenson's team—and whatever reinforcements they'd found and indoctrinated—hadn't been suicidal before going off the deep end. "Tell me this isn't a problem," I said, looking at Miranda.

"It shouldn't be a problem," Miranda replied. "Computer, where can we find the escape shuttles?"

"_Take the lift from this room to the external access port," _the VI replied.

Turning my head over my shoulder, I could see the elevator. At least I didn't have to go searching for it.

"_From there, proceed to the communications tower," _the VI continued_. "The remaining escape shuttles will be located on the tower's landing pad."_

"Excellent. That's where we'd planned to go anyway." Miranda tapped a few commands on her omni-tool. A schematic sprang to life above her arm. She nodded in satisfaction, having confirmed our extraction route and activated her comm. "Joker, this is Miranda. We have Shepard and are moving to the rendezvous site. Do you copy?"

To my relief, Joker's voice came through loud and clear. _"Got it."_

"Be advised that the Project Base escape shuttles are located there as well, so there may be some traffic and potential opposition," Miranda added.

"_What else is new? Joker out."_

Finally some good news. I really needed some, especially now: thanks to that bump on the head, I now had twenty-eight minutes and forty seconds before the Reapers arrived. Which meant seven minutes and forty-one seconds, before things went boom. **(11)** The point was, I had to get moving.

I took the elevator and started to run down the hall. Then I noticed that one of the rooms that had previously been locked when I first arrived was now open. Peering in, I spared maybe ten or twenty seconds to run in and swipe some medical enhancement data, some palladium and some credits.

"Unbelievable," Miranda muttered.

"It's Shepard," Garrus murmured. "If he didn't do that, we'd _know _he wasn't okay."

"He has a point there," Tali agreed.

Traitors.

On a whim, I tried one of the locked doors a few metres down. All I got was a loud beep, followed by _"Warning: Alpha Relay collision imminent. Evacuation is recommended."_

By that point, we'd already entered the next room. Eschewing the stairs, I slid down the rail and ran, barely pausing long enough to grab some more credits and some power cells along the way. I skidded to a stop inside the airlock, waited for the squad to catch up and slapped the controls.

The doors closed. _"Normalizing air pressure in airlock."_

Almost there…

* * *

Sound doesn't carry in the vacuum of space, so I couldn't rely on hearing the sounds of bullets to warn me of any hostiles. That's what my HUD was for. Or if that didn't work, the flicker of bullets bouncing off my shields would suffice.

Finding cover, I paused long enough to tap into their communications. After running and gunning through them for the last little while, I'd picked up enough to figure out which frequencies they were using. Raising my omni-tool, I started zapping their shields one by one. Undeterred by their sudden vulnerability, they kept firing. Trying to stay calm, I was about to set up one of them on fire, remembered that there was no oxygen in the vacuum of space, and settled for shooting back with my heavy pistol. Normally I'd need a whole clip to take down one of the Project goons. But since I had my squad to watch my back and soften them up, I only needed to expend a couple bullets to drop two of them before my shields failed. I ducked back down behind my crate, just in time to avoid a couple more bullets—and the detonation of a flashbang grenade.

Some guard tried to sneak up on me. Unfortunately for him, my cloak was charged and my sniper rifle was ready. Unfortunately for me, there were still two more guards pinning me down, with another two on the way. Miranda stripped guard number four of his shields. I prepared to activate my cloak, changed my mind, switched targets and scored a clean headshot through guard number five. While Mordin and Zaeed took care of the guard Miranda had hit, Garrus zapped guard six's shields. That gave me time to pull out my heavy pistol and opened fire. Three or four shots later, guard number four went down.

"_No!"_ I heard a guard yell out in consternation. _"That's the last shuttle!"_

Aw, crap. Sure enough, I saw a shuttle lift off and head towards the mass relay.

"_You mean they left us here?!" _another guard cried out.

Guess some of them weren't quite as indoctrinated as the rest. Mind you, under other circumstances, I would have shared their dismay. At least I knew there was a way out for me and my squad. Of course to get out of here, we'd have to fight past three more guards. I raised my heavy pistol and fired off a couple more shots. Two more guards now...

...

...and another YMIR heavy mech.

Aw, crap. Quickly formulating a plan, I divvied up tasks. Miranda, Kasumi and I started zapping and draining the YMIR's shields while Garrus and Tali did the same with the remaining guards. Then I switched to my sniper rifle. I fired shots as quickly as I could eject and reload my thermal clips, not bothering to boost the damage with my cloak. It only took three shots to crack open its armour. Then I hacked the sucker.

It paused, turned towards the guards, fired a couple shots...

...and then the hack wore off. It turned back. I hacked it again. Same thing. "Tali?"

She hacked the YMIR. It spent a good eight or nine seconds spraying its compatriots with high-velocity rounds...

...then turned back and started firing at us. Oh for crying out loud! Really? Giving up, I just raised my sniper rifle and fired another head shot. The YMIR slumped... swayed... fell to its knees. A glow started to emanate from its cracked armour plates. All of us had seen this before, so we ducked behind the crate and hoped for the best. I felt more than heard the YMIR exploding as its micro-core went critical. When I lifted my head, I saw that the YMIR had more or less been vaporized, along with the last two guards. My squad and I, on the other hand, were still in one piece. Given everything that had happened, I allowed myself a moment to sigh in relief.

Then we ran like hell for the landing pad. Somehow, serendipity had arranged for a trail of thermal clips to lie in my path, allowing me to restock one last time. Now if that could extend to getting the hell out of here. "Shepard to Normandy," I began. "Joker, do you read me?"

Nothing. Oh, for crying out loud! The comms had worked before! Why had they suddenly crapped out now? "Shepard to Normandy. Joker, do you read me?" I repeated.

Still nothing. I was about to begin again when something caught my eye.

It began as a half dozen yellow lights shining out, too close to be one of the countless stars shining in the cold, empty void. But I couldn't figure out their source. Then other things started to appear. A large, bulky, semi-cylindrical shape, tapering to a point near the top. A series of legs tucked against the main body, unfolding and extending as the giant mass descended.

Before I knew it, we were staring at a Reaper. Well, a holographic projection of one. _"Shepard," _it greeted me, somehow accessing my comm channel, its voice booming through my speakers. _"You have become an annoyance."_

I recognized that voice. I'd heard it several times before, but always behind the face of a Collector puppet. "Harbinger," I replied. "Wish I could say it was nice to finally meet you. FYI: I've been called worse."

Harbinger was not impressed. _"You fight against inevitability," _it told me. _"An insignificant mote of dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you. A star system sacrificed."_

No. It didn't seem like a victory. Not really. Not when I considered the cost.

"_But even now, your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us."_

I stared up at the hologram, as cold and lifeless and unfeeling as the actual Reaper itself.

"Maybe you're right," I admitted quietly. "Maybe we can't win this."

I took a step forward, and another. And another. My momentum kept building, along with my voice and my anger at all the suffering the Reapers had caused. "But we'll fight you regardless," I declared. "Just like we did when we took down Sovereign. Just like I'm doing now. Just like we will when you and your kind finally show up.

"Yes, people will suffer. People will die. We might lose more planets. More systems. Hell, maybe we'll lose half the galaxy. Or more. But we'll. keep. fighting. We will do whatever it takes to rid the galaxy of the Reaper threat. However 'insignificant' we might be, we'll stand up against the inevitable. We will fight. We will sacrifice. And we will find a way. You know why? 'Cuz _that's_ what humans do!"

"And turians!" Garrus cried out, standing beside me.

"And quarians," Tali echoed, joining him.

"And krogan!" Grunt roared.

"And asari!" Samara added, following suit.

"Salarians too," Mordin said.

"We find a consensus in opposing you," Legion stated.

"Hear that?" I called out. "We're gonna keep fighting and struggling and resisting. And we will win in the end. Remember that!"

Harbinger stared down at us in silence.

"_Words spoken in ignorance. Know this, Shepard: your time _will _come. Your species will fall. Like countless species over infinite cycles, you cannot stop the inevitable._

"_Prepare yourselves for the Arrival."_

With that, Harbinger folded his legs up and faded away. I glared at it furiously as it disappeared, impotent to stop its departure.

"—_do you read me? Shepard?"_

Was that... "Joker?"

"_Thank God. Normandy inbound for emergency extraction. ETA: ten seconds."_

Now that Harbinger wasn't throwing its virtual weight around, I could see the Normandy flying to the rescue, like some giant angel. I made a rough extrapolation of the closest point it could stop. "Roger that," I replied. I glanced at the chronometer as I broke into a sprint.

One minute.

Only a pilot with Joker's skill could slow the Normandy down so that it practically came to a halt, the port airlock sliding open just as we arrived. I jumped aboard and quickly turned around, half expecting one last hostile to try and get the jump on us. There were no more hostiles left, though. None alive, anyway.

And soon, there would be no more inhabitants of this system.

As the last squadmate entered and the airlock closed, I looked at the chronometer again. Forty seconds.

I ran into the cockpit as soon as the airlock re-pressurized, the rest of the squad right on my heels. "Get us out of here, Joker!" I cried.

"We're gone!" Joker assured me, fingers flying over his console. We flew towards the Alpha Relay, connected and flew away—the last ship to ever use it to travel amongst the stars.

Twenty-five seconds.

I ran back towards the galaxy map and pulled it up. All the systems and all the mass relays sprang to life, hovering right in front of me. But my eyes were fixed on one relay, in one system.

Three seconds...

two...

one...

That relay suddenly flared into a bright white light. The light expanded into a sphere that grew larger and larger, almost blinding me with its intensity.

Then it disappeared. Ripples of white light continued outward into the vastness of space, leaving a dark, empty void at its core. I watched in silence. After a few seconds, the light went out.

The Reapers were thwarted.

The galaxy was saved.

God help me.

* * *

_(1): A reference to the novella 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' written by the human author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886. It is commonly associated with what is presently known as dissociative identity disorder, in which more than one distinct personality resides within the same body. _

_(2): Yet another example of Shepard giving nicknames, though I am uncertain whether this moniker is intended as a compliment or an insult. _

_(3): James Bond, a fictional secret agent renowned for saving the world against a wide variety of criminals and terrorists... and charming random women into his bed. _

_(4): I__n fact, a normal human's hands would be seriously bruised, if not suffering broken bones. The fact that Shepard's hands were intact are a testament to the various genetic modifications he'd received, both before and during his mission to stop the Collectors._

_(5): That would be when Miranda was forced to wake him up prematurely at the Lazarus Research Station. A hardsuit had been left there accidentally._

_(6): Only Shepard would be so determined as to look for 'loot' in the face of impending doom. Though I found the fact that he was willing to wait until after the shooting stopped quite remarkable._

_(7): A human metaphor referring to a person or group accepting some belief, argument or philosophy without question or critical examination. It stems from the November 1978 Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, South America, where members of the religious organization Peoples Temple committed suicide by drinking powdered soft drink flavouring agent laced with cyanide._

_(8): Readers should not be surprised by Shepard's actions here._

_(9): A human saying suggesting one is not in full possession of one's mental faculties._

_(10): Alliance shorthand for 'situation report,' a military term for a summarization of what was happening._

_(11): Thanks to the delay in activating the Project, Shepard was cutting it close to the wire, as humans would say. On the bright side, the Alpha Relay would be destroyed well before the first Reaper could arrive from dark space._


End file.
